


Into the Skid

by proleptic_fancy



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Post-S1, Unresolved OT3 Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-29
Updated: 2016-10-29
Packaged: 2018-08-27 19:17:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8413471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/proleptic_fancy/pseuds/proleptic_fancy
Summary: Stranded in dead space while the Castle undergoes repairs, everyone is starting to go a little stir crazy. A training accident drives a wedge between Shiro and the rest of the team, and things get complicated fast when Keith tries to bridge the gap.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to the kink meme. Thank you to the folks who read and commented there.
> 
> Also thank you to my beta, who had to listen to me whine a lot, but helped me block out fight scenes anyway.

Four down, one to go.

It had been easier than he thought it would be to convince the others to join him for some impromptu team-building. Part of that may have been that Shiro had offered to talk to Lance for him—since really, unless the princess decided to have one hell of a change of heart when it came to Lance and his perpetual flirting, there was only one person on this ship capable of getting Lance dressed and onto the training deck before the deep space equivalent of noon, and Keith was well-aware it wasn’t him.

Hunk had been enthusiastic, at least, and he didn’t see any reason why Pidge wouldn’t be. That is, if he could _find_ her.

He tried her door a second time, following up the chime with a sharp knock. Still nothing, which meant she was probably already off hiding in some far-flung corner of the castle, working on whatever it was she did when the rest of them weren’t looking. That, or she’d fallen asleep in her lion again. Either way, he was going to have to take the long way down to the hangars.

Maybe once he found her, he’d ask her about looking into a set of communicators. The ones they had in their helmets were great, but there had to be a way to make something easier to wear around the castle on quiet days like this one. Or maybe the Princess would let her install a PA system and some loudspeakers in the castle mainframe, because really, if she was going to make herself this difficult to keep track of, he at least ought to be able to summon her from the comfort of the control room.

Then again, she’d probably just find a way to mute him. Pidge wasn’t really the type to come when she was called.

The bay doors were already propped open when he arrived, and it wasn’t hard to follow the sound of metallic rummaging to where a pair of skinny legs were dangling out of an open panel high on the lion’s side.

“Pidge?”

No response. Not even a break in the hollow knocking that echoed from somewhere within.

He tried again, louder, “Hey, Pidge!”

Still nothing. 

He frowned. This wasn’t getting him anywhere, and the others were probably waiting, so he reached up and gave her a firm double-tap on the back of the calf.

There was a yelp from inside, followed by a loud thump and a foot coming down at his head with surprising viciousness. He sidestepped, barely, and it bounced off the top of her stepladder instead, sending it clattering to the ground.

“Try it one more time, I dare you!” she yelled, still kicking out like an angry mule in an attempt to connect with something solid.

“Try _what_?” he asked. He wasn’t sure she could hear him over the racket she was making, but what else was new? “Because I tried calling you. You didn’t answer.”

“Wait, Keith?” The thrashing stilled. “Shit, I thought you were Lance. Last time I was up here, he snuck up behind me and pushed me in! Can you believe that?” 

“Um, yes?” Sounded pretty typical, actually.

“That was rhetorical, but thank you,” she said. “I, uh, would you mind putting that ladder back? Not that I wouldn’t love to hang out in here all day, but I’m assuming you wanted something. Also at some point I’m probably going to have to pee, so yeah. Ladder.”

More than he needed to know, but whatever. He stood the ladder back up, as close underneath her as he could manage. For what little it seemed to matter, anyway, since he wasn’t even sure how she’d be able to reach it from all the way up there.

“Are you sure about this?” he asked. “That thing doesn’t look…stable.”

“Then hold it steady if you’re so worried about it, geez.”

She pushed herself backward, finding the edge of the top step with one foot as she hung from the panel. The ladder wobbled ominously, and Keith grabbed on in time to keep it from tipping over. Then, in what had to be a practiced move, but still made his stomach drop just watching her, she pulled herself up with one hand to slide the panel cover back down into place with the other, and let go with both just in time for it to close with a snap and the hiss of hydraulics within.

And then she missed.

Her other foot had caught on the stepladder’s handle, knocking her off balance, and her arms clawed at open air as she tumbled backwards with no jetpack to right her. Keith was moving before he realized it, trying his hardest to stay loose so it would hurt less for both of them when he used his body to break her fall. The impact of her shoulder slamming into his chest forced the air from his lungs, but he wrapped his arms around her anyway and let the momentum carry both of them to the hangar floor.

They just kind of stayed there for a moment: Keith trying to suck in shuddered breaths as the room snapped back into focus, Pidge with her face scrunched up and her glasses knocked askew. He could feel her trembling, from shock or adrenaline or both he didn’t know, and he fumbled for the hand trapped between them. Her eyes opened when he brushed his thumb across the back of it, and her hand unclenched enough to slip into his.

“Are you okay?” he asked, once his breathing had slowed enough to get the words out.

“Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, I think so. What about you?”

“Fine.” It came out clipped, as the fear that had spiked when she started to fall and the wash of relief that had rippled through him when they’d hit the ground unbroken gave way to irritation over any of it happening at all.

He untangled himself from her, standing up too quickly, and if he pulled her to her feet a little harder than he should have, well, she didn’t say anything. So that was fine too.

“What were you thinking, screwing around up there without your armor? You could have broken something!”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” she said with a shrug, “and what are you, my mom?”

“No, just somebody who understands that if one of us gets injured doing something stupid and avoidable, it affects the rest of us too. Or were you just gonna suit up and fly your lion with a cast on your leg?”

“Oh lay off, Keith. Like you’ve never gone running head first into danger without taking half a second to think about what was gonna happen when somebody had to come rescue you. Oh _wait_.”

That was _different_ , he wanted to protest. He wanted to tell her he’d been taking risks that were calculated and necessary, with the very fate of the galaxy at stake, but his heart wasn’t in the lie. There were decisions he’d made in the heat of battle that he’d make again without hesitation, no matter who disagreed. There had been others—well, he was willing to concede that it was possible Pidge treating her lion like a cross between a high-tech hot rod and a jungle gym wasn’t their biggest liability when it came to team readiness, looking back.

She’d been the one to pull him out of the fire herself more than once now. There was a chance he should have stopped to reflect on those moments before laying into her.

“ _And_ ,” she continued, because between the rush of the fall and her righteous indignation at Keith’s hypocrisy, she was spun up and ready to fight, and riding it out without losing his temper was probably about what he deserved. “I’ve landed on that step no problem dozens of times. Dozens! I probably only missed it today because I hit my head when you startled me.”

“You did?” he asked, and he was taking a step closer on autopilot. “Was it bad? Should you be in the infirmary?”

“What? No! It’s _fine_ ,” she said. “My point is, you are the last person who gets to yell at anybody for getting hurt doing something stupid. Deal with it.” She took a deep breath, and her posture softened. “I mean, letting somebody fall on you is a pretty stupid way to injure yourself, you know? Still glad you did it, so, uh, thanks.”

“Yeah, don’t make a habit out of it,” but his heart wasn’t in the scolding either, anymore, and he couldn’t quite keep the smile from his face when he said it.

“I make no promises.” She grinned at him. “Anyway, what’s up?”

“Oh, right.” After all the kicking and the shouting and the bruising, he’d nearly forgotten why he came down here in the first place. “Coran’s been helping me translate some of the training exercises the original Paladins used to use. I found one I wanted to try, but we need everybody there. Shiro’s upstairs rounding up the others now.”

She perked up a little at that last part. Which, well, he’d be a liar if he said that wasn’t why he brought it up in the first place, and he’d be a hypocrite if he said it wouldn’t have worked just as well on him. He preferred to think he was neither, so he didn’t say anything else at all.

“Just give me a minute to get cleaned up, first.” She showed him her hands, which were stained halfway to the elbow with something oily and deep, deep blue. “I’m still not entirely sure what this stuff is, but I already got it all over you—sorry—and now there’s a bunch on the floor and that’s probably some kind of space OSHA violation—is that even a thing? I mean, space is kinda one big occupational hazard when you think about it, so I guess that would be kinda pointless, wouldn’t it?” When he didn’t have an answer for her, she wrinkled her nose at him and continued, “Rambling again, sorry! Anyway, I don’t want to get any on my armor, too, so I’ll meet you up there, okay?”

He wasn’t sure she ought to be doing anything to her lion that left her _that_ covered in mystery alien goo, but he wasn’t in the mood to pick another fight, so he just nodded and left her to it. Luckily the stuff washed right off his arms, once he’d made it back to quarters, and he could worry about his clothes later.

He was armored up and halfway back to the training deck when he ran into Shiro, walking out of the control room alone.

“There you are,” he said. “I thought you might have gotten lost. Everybody ready?”

“I think so, unless Lance decided to go back to bed while I was downstairs. And if he did, I’m gonna sic Pidge on him,” he added under his breath.

That got a laugh out of Shiro, oddly enough.

“What? He can sleep later. This is important,” Keith said, ignoring the low flush spreading out and up from the back of his neck. That’s where it always seemed to start, when it was just the two of them.

“I don’t disagree,” said Shiro. “Actually, I’m impressed. You’ve been showing a lot of initiative with the team since we got back. It’s going to pay off once we’re back in action.”

That was definitely part of it. Marooned out in dead space, a million miles or more to the nearest solid rock, he’d needed to find something to keep him busy. They all had. It was that or blowing yourself out an airlock. More than that, though, he’d been trying to take Shiro’s words to heart, once he’d had the space to decide for himself what they were going to mean. He needed to step up—that much was obvious—but not because he was going to replace Shiro. Not when everything was going to hell and not now and not ever. He needed to be stronger, and faster, and colder. To be able to do what had to be done to win this war, even if the others faltered. When the time came, he would be ready.

“I hope you’re right,” he said, not that he really needed to. Shiro was right about most things, he’d noticed. “Let’s get started.”

“Just a sec. You’ve got something—blue?” Shiro reached out and swiped a finger across Keith’s jawline, then examined it, puzzled. “What the—?”

“Um.” Keith needed a moment to reboot. “I think it’s hydraulic fluid? Pidge was doing…something to her lion. I don’t know.”

“Oh,” said Shiro, and then, after a little thought, “ _Oh._ I see.”

Keith wasn’t sure _he_ did. He could see the way Shiro was smirking at him, though, and he didn’t like it at all. 

“C’mon,” he said. There had been enough delays already, and he was more than ready to hit something. Or someone. Either. 

He didn’t wait to see if Shiro followed.

***

To Keith’s relief, everyone else was already there when they arrived. Lance and Hunk were having an animated conversation in the center of the blank white chamber, and Pidge was watching them from the corner as she moved through a series of stretches. He was glad to see somebody, at least, was taking this seriously.

Shiro cleared his throat, and suddenly three pairs of eyes were on them.

“Go ahead, Keith,” he said. “It’s all you.”

“Okay,” he said, then frowned. That really wasn’t how he’d meant to sound at all, so he huffed out a short, sharp breath and started again. “We’re out of the fight right now. Believe me, _nobody_ hates that more than I do.” 

He hesitated, waiting for someone to challenge his statement. No one did.

“If we’re going to have any chance of winning this thing, we all have to be better. We have to understand each other’s weaknesses and be able to compensate without thinking about it, and that’s what we’re gonna learn.”

“So, when you say weaknesses, you mean what, exactly?” asked Lance. “Like, how Hunk tried to give himself the flu just so he could get out of low-orbit quals? ‘Cause that was pretty weak. Oh! Or like your mullet! I mean, I’m trying my best, but I can only compensate for so much, you know?”

“More like how you can’t keep your mouth shut any time you see something shaped like a girl,” Pidge cut in before Keith could tell him to knock it off. “Zarkon’s gonna stick one of his generals in a dress and then _we’re all going to die_.”

“That’s—I— _you’re_ shaped like a girl!”

“Ooh, good one, Lance. You really got me there.” 

“All right, enough!” Keith snapped. “This is what I’m talking about! If you spent half as much time thinking about how to handle yourselves in a fight as you did baiting each other into stupid arguments, maybe we wouldn’t be stuck out here in the first place!”

He balled his hands into fists and took a deep breath, willing the frustration to drain out of him. It didn’t work. If anything, making the effort to think about it just coiled the tension in his limbs tighter, ready to explode.

Shiro was still watching him with the bland, polite interest usually reserved for teachers and officers. If things really were going to spiral out of control, he’d intervene and set them right, wouldn’t he? Keith chose to trust that he would, and the thought of it steadied him enough to continue, if still through gritted teeth.

“I’m only gonna go through this once, so pay attention. Or don’t, if you like figuring things out the hard way. Your call.”

He laid out the rules of the exercise as best as he remembered from Coran’s eager explanation: two teams of two, one team doing anything they could to defend the odd man out, the other trying to break through that defense and land a clean hit on him. As soon as the hit was scored, the lucky winner became the next target, and the whole thing started up again. It was simple. Probably.

“Um, stupid question.” It was the first time Hunk had spoken up, and Keith was surprised to find himself inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.

“Go ahead.”

“So we’re going to spar, I get that part, “ he said, “but what are we sparring with? Because I really don’t want to shoot you guys, but, uh, my team’s not gonna get very far if you try to hand me one of those zappy staff things the drones use.”

“Right! That’s a good point. The old Paladins thought of that too, here—”

He entered the sequence Coran had showed him into the wall terminal and punched the go button. The lights dimmed, and one by one, holographic weapons began to materialize in their hands. Each took the familiar shape of their bayard in translucent wire-frame, the soft white glow illuminating their faces in turn.

Well, almost all of them. 

The light started to coalesce around Shiro’s cybernetic arm the way it had for the others, but as soon as it made contact, it flickered, then winked out entirely, leaving him alone in the dark. 

So that hadn’t gone as well as he’d hoped, but it was probably what he should have expected.

“It’s okay,” Shiro said. “I’m used to fighting without it.”

Keith almost thought he’d imagined the note of disappointment he heard, but from the look of it, he hadn’t been the only one. Pidge was hovering just outside of arm’s reach, not bothering to hide the concern written all over her face. Then again, she did that a lot, even before they’d all been reunited. He still couldn’t say if it was worse, since, or if it was the separation that had made him more inclined to notice.

“Hey, I don’t know about everybody else, but I’ve seen you fight without a weapon, and let me be the first to say this game would be over pretty quick if that thing wasn’t on the fritz,” said Lance. “Now the rest of us might have a chance.”

“Yeah, man,” chimed in Hunk, clapping Shiro on the shoulder. “You’re kinda scary. But like, _our_ scary.”

“Heh, thanks. I think.” He made a quick gesture with his left hand, and an energy shield snapped into place at his wrist, lighting him up like a beacon. “At least that still works. Must not recognize the arm.” A pause. “On the other hand—” another gesture, and the shield collapsed into a single point of light, then vanished “—you can’t hit what you can’t see. Let’s fire this thing up.”

As soon as Keith called out, “Begin program,” a bright sphere flared into existence at the front of the chamber, glowing a sickly, deep purple. It didn’t make much sense on its own, at least not until a pair of smaller lights were pulled into a slow orbit around it: one red and one green. The last two were blue and yellow, which fit the emerging pattern, but unlike the rest, they appeared as a pair of bright beams, slicing through the center of the whole picture in a decisive ‘X’.

He chose to take it as more evidence for his theory that being pointlessly overdramatic about everything was ingrained somewhere deep in the Altean genome, but whatever. It got the point across.

“Woo, Team Legs! We got this!” Lance said, giving Hunk a friendly punch on the arm.

So that left him with Pidge. Her size would be a disadvantage trying to cover a target like Shiro, but she was quick and she was smart and she was willing to listen, usually. He could have been stuck with worse. Much, much worse.

“Pidge, shields up!” he shouted, getting his own in place just in time to block the first salvo Lance sent at them.

She followed suit, falling into place at his left hand to form a tight, mobile wall between the attack team and their objective.

“Wait a sec, let me get this straight. You and me—” she gestured between them with her weapon “—are defending _him_ against the guys with _guns_? Because that does not seem very fair.”

“Who said war was gonna be fair?” said Lance, and no shit, actually struck a little pose with his blaster. It was like he _wanted_ Keith to kick his ass. 

“It’s fine,” Keith said instead, low enough for only her and Shiro to hear. “Any second now they’re gonna realize they can’t get through unless they split up, and that’s when we move. You and me are faster than either of them, so just make sure you stay in the line of fire while you close the gap, and we can make them fight on our terms.”

“Got it.”

Until then, Keith kept his eyes on the guns, side-stepping to block the big one when it swung up to deliver a pair of slow, curving shots around his guard, and he felt rather than saw Pidge come up to cover Lance’s attempted strike at the hole it left in their defense.

“This isn’t working,” he heard Hunk complain.

Then Lance: “I know! Keep shooting!”

And then the little gun was moving. It was the signal Keith was waiting for to burst forward, half-running, half-flying toward Hunk with his jets at full power. Surprise was on his side—he’d already cleared most of the distance when he heard the yelp from behind him, and his head jerked back toward it to assess the damage. 

Lance had managed to sneak a lucky shot past Pidge’s shield, taking her off her feet. Before she even hit the ground, her bayard was in motion, and it streaked through the air like a comet to crash into the barrel of Lance’s rifle and send the kill shot he’d lined up on Shiro screaming wild.

“I’ve got this. Focus!” she snapped, and Keith turned back just in time to see Hunk bearing down on him, shoulder lowered and braced for impact.

He dodged, barely, and called his sword to his hand. It felt _right_ , just like the real thing, which he hadn’t expected from the look of it. That or it was somehow tricking his brain into feeling a heft and balance that wasn’t really there, but either way, he was able to land a hard enough blow to catch Hunk’s attention. Another across his exposed back was all it took to make him wheel around and fight. 

The cannon fizzled out, unnecessary, as Hunk tried to make a grab for him and came up empty-handed. It was impressive—and a little intimidating—the way he powered through strike after strike from the blunted blade with no shield up to protect him, his face set in stoic determination. Still, Keith pressed on, trying to keep himself out of reach while he drove Hunk back toward the other two one slow step at a time. From what little he could see past his own struggle, Pidge was doing a pretty good job of forcing Lance to choose between taking a shot, any shot, and keeping his shield up long enough to block the constant barrage of hooks and jabs as she bobbed and weaved around him, looking for a way under his guard.

They nearly had Hunk and Lance fighting back to back, with a little help from Shiro playing distraction, when Pidge ducked under Lance’s arm, her bayard looping up and around to land neatly in her hand on the other side. She yanked the line back, _hard_ , and Lance went with it, gun flying out of his hands.

Keith watched it tumble through the air, a second’s distraction he paid for in full when Hunk finally called up his shield and, with a firm backhand strike, used it like a battering ram to send Keith sprawling. In the same fluid motion, his other hand shot up and closed around the rifle’s grip. By the time any of them thought to react, he’d already set it to his shoulder and was pulling the trigger, catching Shiro square in the chest from across the room.

A buzzer sounded, and their weapons disappeared. The sudden silence was cavernous, punctuated only by the soft echo of hard breathing. Unsurprisingly, Lance was the first to break it.

“Was that supposed to be possible? I mean, it was _really cool_ , but I feel like that wasn’t supposed to be possible.”

“I dunno,” Hunk said, speculative. “I guess we’re just that in sync.”

“Hell yeah we are, buddy.” They high-fived, because of course they did, and Keith resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

“Ugh, get a room.”

It was kind of satisfying, the way Pidge never bothered to mince her words, especially not with those two idiots. She shoved her way past the pair of them to offer Keith a hand up. He took it—not because he needed any help—there just wasn’t much point to being rude about it, was all.

“Now what?” she asked.

Keith wasn’t sure. “It should have reset on its own by now. Maybe it’s malfunctioning?”

“That or it’s trying to give us a breather,” Hunk chimed in. “I know I could use one. Man, you’re a _beast_.”

This from the guy who’d swatted him away like nothing more than an unusually persistent bug.

“Uh, thanks?”

Lucky for him, another sharp buzzer cut through the chamber before he had to think of anything else to say to that. The indicators once again lit up in sequence, faster this time. Yellow first—no surprise there, since Hunk had been the one to make the shot, even if it had been with somebody else’s weapon. Red and black were next, and Keith felt the familiar thrill tighten at the base of his spine at the chance to fight side-by-side with Shiro, no matter how low the stakes. 

He didn’t need to see the rest to realize who the new enemy was going to be. From the vicious grin she was giving him, neither had Pidge.

At some point leading up to now, it probably should have occurred to him to let go of her hand.

In the heartbeat it took him to reorient his thinking, she took care of that for him by dropping his in favor of her bayard, and the glint of light reflecting off her visor was the only warning he got before she launched it straight for his legs.

As long as he could get clear of the first strike, he’d be in position and ready for the counterattack in the precious few seconds it would take her to retract. She wouldn’t stand a chance against him one-on-one, which was good, because until Shiro got back over here, he’d need to find some way of keeping Lance busy too.

He dove to one side, confident in his plan right up until the moment he felt something hook around his ankle and _jerk_. His leg went out from under him, and he couldn’t compensate quickly enough to regain his balance. A blaster bolt buzzed over him as he started to stumble, right about where his head would have been if he’d stayed on his feet—at least Lance could be counted on not to take advantage of a totally defenseless target if he thought he could get one up on Keith instead.

There were two things Keith saw as he crashed face-first into the ground for what was this, the third time today? More than one too many, at any rate. First was Shiro, sprinting towards the fight with his head down and the strangest look on his face. The second was Pidge, using some combination of the forward momentum she’d snatched away from Keith and the jets on her back to fling herself up and over him and slam into Hunk’s chest for the strike.

Moments later, Keith’s valiant attempt to get up under his own power was aborted when something solid hit him between the shoulder blades just as the buzzer went off.

“Whoops, sorry!” called out Lance, sounding anything but.

“Not as sorry as you’re gonna be,” Keith muttered. He’d see to that soon enough.

The program wasn’t anywhere near as generous with its period of truce this time, and Keith couldn’t quite ignore the surge of frustration and disappointment he felt when he saw that even after Pidge had caught him off-guard and stolen away the first chance he’d been given to fight at Shiro’s side since—since _everything_ , before it had begun, he was still expected to defend her.

Then again, maybe that was the point.

Before he could think on that any further, Hunk grabbed hold of his arm and hauled him to his feet, holding him in place just long enough to whisper, “Lance always closes his right eye when he has to aim. He won’t see you coming,” before breaking off to take his position.

The last set of lights blazed to life, black and blue, and Keith took off into the darkness, trusting Hunk to keep the attackers occupied in the time it would take him to circle around and strike from an unexpected direction. He was done waiting for someone else to make the first move, done trying to react. It was going to be preemptive defense from here on out.

He set his sights on Lance with vengeance in his heart. He’d been itching for the chance to lay into somebody since before they’d even gotten started, but Pidge was off limits, Shiro was _Shiro_ , and even if they weren’t on the same team, Hunk apparently had an infinite capacity to take a beating and _still_ wanted to be nice to him afterward. There really was no better target than the jackass who’d more-or-less been asking for it from the start. He could just about taste the satisfaction already.

Sticking close to the chamber wall, he could keep an eye on the fight as he crept closer. Hunk was holding his own, but with two against one, there was only so long he could last. Keith was ready to even those odds. He lowered his head for the sprint, ready to tackle Lance from behind and teach him a thing or two about respect for one’s betters.

And then somehow, Shiro was in front of him. 

Keith pressed through the immediate instinct to backpedal, and chose instead to accelerate into the inevitable, firing up his jetpack and readying his weapon for impact. There was no point in keeping it concealed any longer, nothing to gain from subtlety or subterfuge, just blind conviction that his strength would be enough.

He brought the sword down with an indistinct shout, aiming for a spot that couldn’t cause any serious damage, but might slow Shiro down, make him remember with every twinge, every move. He wanted to write his name under Shiro’s skin, at least for a day or two.

It didn’t work. 

Shiro’s arm came up as if to deflect the blow, but at the last second his wrist turned, catching the blade in his grip. He held it there, unflinching, no matter what Keith tried to wrench it free. Admitting momentary defeat, Keith let his sword dematerialize, ready to pull back and dart under for an attack on Shiro’s exposed ribcage. 

As he rushed back in, Shiro came forward to fill what little space remained between them. He was impossibly fast, grabbing Keith’s arm with one hand and yanking him flush to his chest, then twisting his body to roll Keith over his shoulder as if he weighed nothing at all.

Keith was scrambling to his feet as soon as the flat of his back hit the ground, but it was too late. Lance had started to strafe in a tight arc, forcing Hunk to keep pace with the constant volley of fire, and Shiro was already curving around to catch Pidge from behind. It was only a matter of time before one of them succeeded—Keith knew that much. Still, he wasn’t going to let himself be so easily bested for the second time in a row.

While Shiro was preoccupied, he returned to his original plan, since now he had the added benefit of freeing up Hunk to engage a target his own size. Mindful of the advice he’d been given, he made his final approach from just behind Lance’s right shoulder, and though he was too close to the action to get up quite the speed he’d wanted, it was still more than enough to crash into Lance’s blindside and bring him skidding to the ground in a tackle.

There wasn’t even much of a point to hitting him, sword, fists, or otherwise. Not when he could struggle all he wanted and was still utterly powerless with Keith’s shield grinding down into his chest, pushed right up under his throat. Even after Shiro had gotten past Hunk to give Pidge a gentle shove to the center of her back, he lingered there until the lights began, savoring the victory.

“Oh you have _got_ to be kidding,” Lance grumbled, once the teams were revealed. “I want a do-over!” 

“Just try not to shoot me in the back this time.” 

Keith wasn’t exactly thrilled either, but he had sort of been expecting it. From all indications, the program was somehow reading the way they interacted on the battlefield and using the way it assigned them to respond. Why it also seemed to be picking on him specifically, however, remained a mystery.

It didn’t take much longer for the game to descend into chaos. Allegiances changed mid-struggle, and the time between buzzers was short, excepting one near-deadlock that had only been broken when after many, _many_ tries, Lance found the right combination of words to disrupt the uncanny rhythm of Pidge and Shiro’s defense. All of them were getting tired—that was no surprise. What was unexpected was the way each of them started to cover for their teammate’s missteps, and sometimes even managed to anticipate them. Maybe it wasn’t everything Keith had hoped for, but the focus they were starting to find was one hell of a step in the right direction.

For the second time in the last few minutes, Keith found himself as the odd man out. He was supposed to have been the flashy distraction while Shiro charged in for the kill, but somehow, more out of luck than anything else, he’d only been grazed by the laser shot that he’d thought he’d need to stop to deflect. With nothing left to slow him down, he’d cannonballed shield-first straight into Pidge without really even meaning to, and the way Shiro’s whole face lit up at the sight of them, it had been worth the testy little jab to the ribs she gave him for his trouble.

He understood the point of this role from a tactical perspective. It gave him a chance to observe the ebb and flow of the entire fight, without any of the immediate distraction of trying to knock somebody else off of their feet. Which didn’t mean he didn’t hate being forced to rely on his teammates when he was more than capable of handling things on his own, but at least it gave him something else to focus on when the hollow absence of a weapon in his hand started to make him feel itchy.

Shiro and Lance were sticking close, shields up, though whether they thought it would give them some strategic advantage or just because they were running out of steam, Keith wasn’t certain. The other two circled like sharks, staying on opposite sides of him to split the defense. 

Hunk was the first to break the silent standoff, rushing at them with an all-out barrage. He was finally taking full advantage of the cannon’s spread of fire—the shots were easy enough to block, but there was no way Lance could handle them all on his own. Shiro had to know it was a diversion, but what else could he do but try to help?

As soon as he did, Pidge was moving in, aiming straight for the hole Shiro had left in his guard. Keith brought up his hands out of instinct, remembered a second too late that he had no shield to protect himself, and couldn’t quite keep the alarm out of his voice when he yelled, “Shiro, look out!”

Shiro jerked around, and where Keith expected him to knock away Pidge’s bayard with his shield, instead it fizzled out as he snatched the glowing line and yanked her in toward him. The other hand, the dangerous one, was up and burning with its own inner light before any of them had the chance to react.

Something was wrong. _Very_ wrong. 

Keith launched himself at Shiro in a desperation move, ignoring the panicked shouting from the others. It was like trying to tackle a brick wall, and it wasn’t enough to stop the bright arc of Shiro’s arm coming down hard and sending Pidge to the ground in a crumpled heap.

“Dude, that was _not_ in the plan!” Lance sounded angry, but his face betrayed his fear. “She’s—she’s not getting up. You didn’t have to—what were you _thinking_?”

“End program, damn it. _End program_!” His voice sounded strange, like it was coming out of someone else, but Keith didn’t care.

Shiro stumbled back, the blank mask of his expression falling away as the lights came up. Keith felt the familiar tug behind his sternum urging him to go to him, just like it had that night in the desert. This time, he ignored it.

Keith sank to his knees, grabbed Pidge under the arms, and pulled her half-upright, propped up against his chest. At least she was awake—he could see her trying to blink away the hurt and confusion in her eyes as she stared up at Shiro. She couldn’t have been too badly injured if she was awake. It’s what he had to keep telling himself if he was going to believe it.

“Hey.” It was Hunk. When had he gotten close enough to loom over them? “Come on. Let’s get you to medical.”

Keith felt his grip go slack as Hunk bent down to lift Pidge out of his arms. She could stand on her own two feet, but barely, and after a couple of hesitant steps, she sagged into Hunk with a grimace.

“I’ll let you guys know what’s up as soon as I can,” he said.

“Wait a minute, you can’t just—”

“Keith.” His face was impassive, just as it had been when they’d squared off what felt like an eternity ago. “Don’t.”

He wanted to argue further, but one look at Pidge and the words died in his throat. He knew, on some level, that she was the youngest, the most fragile, that she’d come into this without even the cursory training the rest of them had received from the Garrison. He could also pinpoint the exact moment he’d realized none of that mattered to him at all. To think of her as helpless just wasn’t an option, not with the way she carried herself, the defiance in every step that felt as familiar to him as breathing.

Now, though, she looked as lost as he’d ever seen her, and something about it was enough to make _him_ feel unmoored.

Hunk looped her arm around his shoulders and walked her out of the room, the others watching in uncomfortable silence. As soon as they cleared the door, Shiro was moving too. The color still hadn’t returned to his face, and he didn’t meet Keith’s eyes before he turned tail and fled.

If Lance hadn’t spoken up, Keith might have forgotten he was there.

“So, uh, what the hell just happened?”

He wished he knew.

***

Keith was starting to get tired of looking for people who didn’t want to be found.

He’d tried to do the right thing. He hadn’t gone chasing after Shiro no matter how much it tore at him to stay still, hadn’t forced the confrontation he knew Shiro wouldn’t want the others to see. In the time it took him to hit the showers and let the scalding water pull away some of the tension that knotted along his spine, he’d hoped Shiro would at least be ready to open the door.

Apparently not.

There was no sign of him in the mess, the training deck was dark and empty, and the black lion sealed away in its hangar. If this was the result it was going to get him, Keith thought, kicking at a bit of ancient debris as he wandered the castle corridors alone, then doing the right thing was overrated.

He had the patience to keep up the search for about an hour before turning back toward the ship’s bright core. It wasn’t as noisy as usual—he figured everyone was probably still subdued after what had happened. Which was fine. None of the people he could have talked to if he wanted were either of the people he wanted to talk to anyway, so he took the long way around to get back to his quarters.

Not that he knew what to do with himself once he got there. 

Sleep was out of the question, that much was obvious. He tried to read instead, but no matter the subject, whether it was ancient alien training maneuvers or introductory spaceship maintenance or even the book on traditional Altean diplomatic protocols that Coran had slipped into his files in a misguided attempt to teach him some manners, his eyes seemed to slide off the words before they could make it into his brain.

He kept replaying the last fight, over and over, trying to figure out the turning point. What had made Shiro lose his head like that? They’d all seen him freeze up before, like he didn’t remember where he was, or what he was doing. What had been different this time? What could have made him feel like he had no choice but to fight?

And why are you hiding from me, he couldn’t help but think. He would help, if only Shiro would let him. There was nothing he wouldn’t do.

Except until Shiro let him in, there was nothing he _could_ do.

“Ugh, useless,” he snarled, slamming his fist into the wall. It didn’t make him feel any better.

Inaction was unacceptable. The sting of failure was still fresh, mirroring the sharp ache in his hand, but there still had to be another way to do something.

And then it hit him. It wasn’t that he’d forgotten about Pidge. He’d just trusted that she was in safe hands, and it had let him focus his concern elsewhere for a while. The message Hunk sent to his terminal a little while ago said she was resting now, and not to be bothered, but that didn’t tell him shit about whether she was _okay_. 

Maybe it was time to figure that out—after all, he already knew where to find her. It was just a matter of getting there.

When he set off through the castle again, he moved with renewed purpose. It would be easier to make it to the infirmary without alerting her caretakers if everyone assumed he was still in his room, so he did his best to stay clear of well-traveled paths, and he was only a couple corridors away when a sound from behind him made him freeze. 

Footsteps, approaching fast, and then a whisper. Well, a very loud whisper, which kind of defeated the purpose, in Keith’s opinion. So much for the stealth approach.

“Hey. Hey, wait up a sec!”

Oh perfect, just who he wanted tagging along and blowing his cover.

“What do you want, Lance?”

“Why are you _always_ like this—wait, don’t answer that. I don’t actually care.” He was still moving, forcing Keith to take a step back to keep him out of his personal space, then another, and only bothered to stop once he had Keith cornered in the most literal sense. “Were you going to see Pidge?”

“Yeah. I was. What about it?” Like it was any of Lance’s business anyway.

Lance brightened. “Oh wow, that makes this way easier. Okay, so get this: right now the Princess is watching that door like a space hawk. Or maybe a space ninja. Yeah! Like a hot space ninja. Anyway—” he must have finally noticed Keith glowering at him, because he managed to rein himself in a little. “She’s already on to me, so it’s not gonna work if I go back there again. But, if I can get her attention somewhere else for a few minutes, nobody’s ever going to expect _you_ to care enough to try it.”

The words stung more than they should have. Pidge was his teammate. Of course he cared. More than that, she was hurt, and right after he’d gone off on her for taking unnecessary risks. It was bad enough that he hadn’t been able to figure out what was going on with Shiro. If he couldn’t make sure Pidge knew he wasn’t angry with her after what happened—well, that was the reason he was down here, wasn’t it?

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked.

Lance just looked at him as if he’d sprouted another head. “Uh, it’s you. Kinda self-explanatory, there, buddy.” He shrugged. “Look, I wouldn’t be asking if I thought you wouldn’t at least give me the chance to talk you into it. I just—let me know how she’s doing, okay?”

He supposed Lance did have as much of a right to know as any of the rest of them, even if he was going to be so…Lance about it. 

“Sure,” he said.

“Awesome! Alright, give me like five minutes to set this up and keep out of sight. I’ve got just the thing!” And then he was bounding away like an overexcited labrador.

This may have been a mistake.

True to his word, though, a few minutes later, Keith heard voices echoing down through the halls.

“Hunk! My man! I _sure_ am glad to see you right about now.”

“Why are you talking so loud? I’m right here.”

They were getting closer. Keith ducked around a corner and kept listening—hopefully his cue would be obvious. Then again, Lance didn’t really go in for subtle.

“What? _Nah_ , this is normal. Totally normal. Just a couple of normal guys, having a normal conversation, heh.” He did drop his voice when he continued, enough so Keith couldn’t quite make out whatever story he was spinning, until, “—and then the whole thing just went crazy! You’ve gotta help me out, buddy, and whatever you do, you _can’t_ tell the Princess!”

“Can’t tell the Princess _what_?”

Well, he definitely had Allura’s attention.

“Allura! Uh, hi!” Lance stammered. “I, uh, can’t tell the Princess that I find her _devastatingly_ attractive? Yep, you got me! Guilty as charged!”

“Lance.”

“Seriously, dude. Give it up.”

His sigh was theatrical. “Okay, fine. This way,” he said. “I’m just telling you right now, though, it was like that when I got there. I bet _Keith_ broke it.”

Well, that couldn’t have been any more obvious, so, uh, crisis averted there, at least. Still, Keith had to give credit where it was due. When it came to making a fool out of himself for attention, Lance really _was_ a natural.

He waited a little longer, until their voices had faded into a dull murmur, and then he made his move. He pressed his palm to the panel at the side of the door when he got there, ready to dash inside, but instead of the familiar chirp, the screen flashed red and scolded him with a sharp electric zap.

“Ow! What the hell?” He shook his hand out and scowled at it. “Door, I am a Paladin of Voltron. You answer to _me_.”

He slammed his hand into the panel, not quite hard enough to crack the display, but enough to show he meant business. “Now let me _in_.”

The shock he received in response definitely seemed harder this time, and the door remained unmoved.

The sound that escaped him was undignified in its frustration, to have come this close just to get outwitted by a glorified doorknob. It occurred to him that this must be what it felt like to be Lance, except instead of a momentary setback, it was _all of the time_.

A new, nasty thought wormed its way into his head before he could spend any longer dwelling on what a miserable existence that would be. Even if _he_ couldn’t get the door to cooperate, Pidge should have had it open no problem. He’d been too busy fretting about the implications of her injury to consider the logistics of her recovery. Was—was she in cryo? Had it really been that bad?

As if it was responding to the unspoken question, the panel flickered back to life, and he flinched away on reflex. Instead of trying to electrocute him without provocation, though, cheerful green letters began to appear, spelling out ‘ **KEITH**.’ 

Because that wasn’t unsettling. He _really_ hoped this meant she was awake. The alternative was just too weird, even for space.

His name disappeared, and was promptly replaced by ‘ **STOP TOUCHING IT** ,’ just moments before the lock disengaged with a heavy click. He didn’t give it—or himself—a chance to change its mind, and for once it was the right call. He’d barely cleared the entrance when a pleasant but unfamiliar voice sounded out, “Override abort in three, two…” and the door slid back down behind him. 

At least he was in. Better yet, the recovery pods in the center of the darkened room were stowed under the deck, and the surge of relief he felt was enough to chase away the lingering image of Pidge sealed inside, fragile and impossibly small. 

It didn’t take him long to find her, propped up in what looked like a a Galra-sized hospital bed behind a set of privacy screens. Her attention was focused on the array of holographic terminals floating in a semi-circle around her as he approached, but she minimized all of them with a quick gesture before he had the chance to make out the backwards lettering and intricate diagrams.

“Hey,” was all she said.

“Hey, yourself.”

At least she was upright and talking. He couldn’t assess the extent of the damage from here, but that had to be a good sign.

“That trick with the panel—how did you know it was me?” he asked.

Even better, that was enough to get her to crack a smile.

“Please, I own every camera in the castle,” she said, and she must have seen the look of alarm on his face as his brain started filling in the blanks around that little factoid, because she added, “Relax! They’re only by the common areas and down in the hangars. No quarters, no showers. Your modesty is safe.”

She didn’t give him a chance to respond before barreling on. “Sorry about the lock. Princess _Helpful_ changed the override passcode to make sure I couldn’t leave, and I didn’t think to check if anybody was outside until I heard it zap you—nice little speech, by the way—but yeah, I am _really_ glad to see you! Because, like, if Shiro was going to talk to anybody, you’re the guy. Everybody knows that. And Allura wouldn’t tell me if he’s okay and honestly when you showed up I might have already been in the middle of cracking the new passcodes to bust out of here and find out for myself. But now you’re here!”

She finally stopped to take a breath, and her eyes got wide. “I mean, it’s not like I didn’t also want to see _you_ —”

“Pidge, it’s okay. I get it,” he cut in before she had the chance to get going again.

There was a part of him that did want to protest that he was here because he was worried about her. It was no less true, but easier, somehow, than admitting he was just as concerned about Shiro as she was, and that he didn’t have the answers.

“I—he doesn’t want to talk to me either. I searched all over the castle, but he’s pretty good at the disappearing act.”

Okay, wow, not the best choice of words, and they’d come out sounding a lot more bitter than he’d intended them to. So maybe those old wounds hadn’t healed over quite as much as he’d thought.

“Oh.” Her face fell, and Keith did his best to swallow the guilt that burned like acid on the back of his tongue. “This is all my fault. I just…I shouldn’t have—”

As usual, his body was moving before his brain had time to catch up. He could feel the heat rising in his chest as he closed the distance, and couldn’t quite keep that out of his voice either.

“What? No! Don’t be stupid! You didn’t do anything!” 

If anything, it had been _his_ fault from the start. After all, whose idea had it been to set them against each other in the gladiator’s ring? Who had been the idiot who’d called for help without thinking when he couldn’t defend himself? It hadn’t been her.

He’d expected her to argue. Yeah she would have been wrong, and the whole thing would have devolved into another dumb shouting match until Allura came storming back in to drag him out of the infirmary by the ears, and that still would have been better than the way Pidge seemed to stare straight through him instead. Her expression was blank and still, except for the barest hint of teeth worrying at her lower lip. 

“I’m serious,” he said, because he didn’t know what else to do. “You didn’t—it wasn’t—” at which point he realized he was rapidly running out of things that seemed helpful to say to somebody in a situation like this one, and in a panic, he ducked down to pull her into a clumsy hug.

It was kind of awful. Her hair was sticking up funny in the back to tickle his nose, and when he twisted his arm up and under to give her a pat on the shoulder, it came out awkward more than comforting. And then, as if even that much had been going too well, he felt her flinch underneath him when his side pressed into her injured chest at just the wrong angle, and he nearly tripped over himself trying to scramble backwards, babbling a rapidfire stream of apologies as he went.

So much for trying to make her feel better. 

Hunk had been right—he should have left well enough alone and let her rest until they all had a chance to calm down. All he was doing now was making things worse. As usual.

“I should go,” he said, not meeting her eye. “I’m glad you’re, uh—” What, _okay_? If she was _okay_ then she wouldn’t be here in the first place. “I hope you feel better soon,” was what he was able to settle on. It seemed insufficient.

He wasn’t running away, he was just, no, who was he kidding, here? This was him, running away. Good job, Keith. 

_Idiot_.

“Keith, wait.”

He turned, already halfway to the door. At least now she was looking at him. Or she had been, until he met her eyes and she found a sudden need to study her fidgeting hands intently.

“Would you, I mean, since you’re already here, would you mind staying a little longer?”

The last few words came out in a jumble, and it took Keith a second to untangle them enough to figure out what she was asking for. Even then, it didn’t make a whole lot of sense. 

Sure she’d stopped chasing him out of her lab once she realized he wasn’t there to pester her, and she was kind enough not to ask why he seemed to choose her hangar more often than his own when he was looking for somewhere quiet to read. After a year with only stars and dust for company, the simple act of sharing space without being expected to _participate_ was more of a comfort than he cared to admit. Still, it wasn’t like she’d ever asked him to drop in, or even to stick around once he inevitably wandered off.

Until now.

He must have hesitated too long trying to figure it out, because she set her shoulders and spoke again.

“You don’t—it’s fine if there’s something else. I just, I’m already driving myself crazy sitting here worrying and I’m gonna do something, what did you call it? Stupid and avoidable. That.” She sighed. “I _know_ I’m supposed to be resting right now so I can get back into the fight, but that is not gonna happen if I’m stuck in here by myself.”

He almost laughed, thinking about the look on Shiro’s face if he heard somebody asking Keith to be their impulse control, until the reality of the situation came roaring back to kick him in the chest. If Pidge really was on the verge of doing something reckless, who was to say she’d even listen if he tried to stop her? There was no way around it: cooler heads should prevail.

“Understood,” he said. “I can go find Hunk, if you want?” 

Hunk was good at this kind of thing. Keith was, well, Shiro would be tactful enough to say he had other strengths, Lance would just tell him he was an asshole, and Pidge—shit, Pidge was looking at him like he’d just kicked her dog.

“That isn’t what I—” she cut herself off, shaking her head. “You could have just said no. It’s fine. I’ll deal.”

She was lying. It wasn’t her face that gave it away, but how she’d curled in on herself as much as her injuries allowed when he spoke, head bowed and shoulders sagging. Why, though?

He could hear Lance’s voice in his head, mocking. Nobody would expect you to care, he’d said. Was that what she thought too?

“Wait, I didn’t—I mean, I can stay. I want to. Really.” Great, and now he was flustered. She was supposed to be the smart one, so why didn’t she get that he was trying to help? “I just thought you might want, you know, someone else.” Like, literally anybody else, given how well this was going so far.

That seemed to take the legs out from under whatever she was going to say next, because she froze for a moment, gaping at him. “If I wanted it to be somebody else,” she said, finally, “I wouldn’t have asked _you_. I didn’t think you were gonna get so weird about it, geez.”

Neither of them had much of a response to that. Once it became clear that Keith wasn’t going to bolt, or do much of anything except stand there with his hands jammed into his pockets, she spoke up again.

“So, uh, it occurs to me there’s not really a chair or anything in here and I’m starting to get the feeling I didn’t entirely think this through.”

He’d noticed the same thing. It made sense. Not a lot of point in keeping seats around for visitors if you were just gonna stuff all your patients in a tube to sleep it off, whatever _it_ may be. He could keep standing, or—and on any other day he probably wouldn’t have even considered it, but nothing that had happened since he’d gone looking for her this morning had been normal, so screw it, he might as well turn into the skid.

He shrugged. “That bed’s big enough for half the team. Scoot over.”

“Oh, right! Good thinking.”

He was a little surprised that she went for it without hesitation, leaving more than enough room for him to climb in next to her. The mattress was a little firmer than the one in his quarters, and angled enough to keep them more-or-less sitting upright. Comfortable, though, and way less unsettling than the pods. Speaking of which—

“So what’s the verdict? Did Allura say when you’d be out of here?”

Pidge wrinkled her nose. “Tomorrow, probably, if I promise to take it easy. She gave me some freaky space juice that’s supposed to make it heal faster, but I’m still grounded for at least a week. I guess I could have let her stick me in the freezer for a few hours like she wanted to, but no way. Not unless I’m like, dying.”

“I’m sure it’s safe,” he lied. “Lance was fine, wasn’t he?”

“But that’s not the part I’m worried about! What if there was another ship malfunction, or a Galra attack? What if something happened to you guys while I was asleep?” She shivered. “I don’t care if it’s crazy. I can’t risk being trapped in here for ten thousand years, not while my family’s still out there.”

He hadn’t thought of it that way, but he supposed she almost had a point. Besides, it wasn’t like she’d be any more grounded than the rest of them were if she was that determined to do this the slow way.

“Anyway,” she said, with a brittle edge to her voice that betrayed the false cheer, “at least it’ll give me some extra time in the lab until I can start training with you again. Maybe I can talk Allura into letting me patch into the castle sensor network for some tests.”

“Um, yeah. Maybe,” he said. “What have you been working on?”

It was a safe question, one that he hoped would distract her from plotting out worst-case scenarios. That, and he was curious. They’d practically been joined at the ears while she was taking point on Red’s repairs, but she’d thrown herself headfirst into something new as soon as the last bolt was turned, and for the last several days, he’d only seen her when he’d taken the time to go looking.

“Nothing flashy, sorry. Just putting together a new scanner module. It was a pain getting the biometric sensors tuned to find what I was looking for, but I think I’ve mostly got the test cases working. Want to see?”

He nodded, and she slid over to fill the space between them. When his response was to stay very still until he figured out why this was happening, she hesitated.

“Uh, better angle?”

She was good, he’d give her that. He almost believed that was all there was to it. Not that it really mattered—if this was something he could actually do to help her feel better, then he would be hard-pressed to mind.

“Go ahead,” he said, and she leaned back to settle against his chest.

Pidge had explained once why he found the castle almost unbearably cold, about metal bulkheads and heat transfer and the sheer amount of energy it would require to drive all that unnecessary space above their heads up just a couple more degrees. And that had been _before_ ten days marooned on a godforsaken chunk of ice with barely enough power left in his lion to keep the life support on may have frozen his blood permanently. 

Now, though, he realized he preferred the practical demonstration, as the warmth seeping through his thin shirt at every point of contact threatened to help him thaw.

She called up a fresh terminal from the keypad on her wrist to hover at eye-level a couple of feet in front of them. It displayed part of a floor plan, etched out in crisp white against the translucent green background, but it was zoomed in so close that the large square room and bare stretch of corridor outside could have belonged to just about anything. Another quick sequence, and details started to fill in: a bay of unidentified machinery along the east wall, a sink next to what appeared to be some sort of closet, a familiar ring of circles in the center of the room.

“Wait, that’s _here_ ,” he said. “Where’d you get such a detailed map of the castle?”

“Coran let me copy it from the databanks a little after we showed up. I kept getting lost when I tried to go exploring—stupid hallways all look the same,” she grumbled. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s pretty handy, but that’s not the cool part.”

One last press of a button and a glowing point of red light appeared, just about where they were sitting. “ _This_ is the cool part. Not only can my lion scan for lifeforms on its own now, if I have the right data to start from, like, say, those medical readings Allura used to program the healing pods for human physiology, I can use that to get a trace and monitor it from either the cockpit or my computer,” she said. “And that one is you.”

So that was what she meant by test cases. He had a feeling the others might not be happy to hear she’d been poking around in their personal data, but for him at least, the advantages of a system like this far outweighed any concerns for his privacy. From a recon perspective alone—if she could scan Galra ships for prisoners, get positions of enemy forces before a strike—this could have saved them a lot of past heartache.

“That looks like the readings from those pods we used on the Balmera.”

“Yeah! I, uh, may have borrowed one from downstairs when we first got back. Had to reconfigure it to be a little more specific, though. Here, check it out.”

She poked the little red dot and a new terminal window came to life just off to the side. One of the top corners was taken up by a little picture of Keith that looked like it had been pulled from the security feeds, but the rest was a mess of graphs and readouts all cheerfully pulsing away. Vital signs, he realized, as the one that had to be a heart rate indicator jumped up with a little spike.

Pidge must have noticed too, since she turned her head to look up at him and said, “What?”

“That is pretty specific,” he said. “And I’ve heard you calling _Hunk_ the mother hen. What does that make this? Big Brother?”

He’d only meant to tease her—he really was impressed—but she didn’t respond in kind. If anything, she looked a little disheartened.

“It might be a little much,” she admitted. “I just, I get really worried sometimes. About everybody. Especially after—”

“I know,” he said, and he meant it. There had been so many close calls, catastrophes on top of catastrophes. It was only out of sheer stubborn luck that they’d all made it back alive.

Her voice was soft and her eyes downcast when she spoke again. “I have nightmares, sometimes, about finding you. Except it’s always too late, and you’re so cold, and you don’t—” her voice cracked, “you don’t get up.”

He’d thought he was a goner when the shadow passed over the sun. Splayed out on the ice, too weak from hunger and numb from the cold to claw his way back to shelter, it wouldn’t have mattered if it was a Galra ship come to snuff him out or just the inescapable certainty of nightfall. Either way, he should have been dead.

But he wasn’t. It had been her.

“I’ve already lost too many people,” she said, yanking him back from the memory of that first night he spent on the floor of Green’s cockpit. “I’m not going to lose any more.”

Her mouth was set in a hard line, a stoic counterpoint to the watery sheen her eyes had taken all of a sudden. She wasn’t quite crying, yet, but still, better to head _that_ off quick before he got even further out of his depth, here.

He reached over her and minimized the window that was monitoring him so it couldn’t give away too much. She’d been kind enough—or distracted enough—not to say anything about where those graphs were at, but sitting here watching his body betray him in real time was a little more than he could handle. 

“I believe you,” he said. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, “And you didn’t lose me.”

That…actually seemed like the right thing to say. At the risk of pushing his luck, he covered her hand with his, as if it might reassure her that he wasn’t going anywhere. He felt her breath catch at the contact, but this time he didn’t jerk away.

“Does that hurt?” he asked. He didn’t think that was the arm she’d landed on, but it had all happened so fast, he couldn’t be sure.

“No! No, you’re fine. I mean, it’s fine. Hand’s fine.” She ran her free hand through her hair, shaking her head. “Anyway, um, the other thing I was working on was a way to auto-locate anybody I’m already tracing as long as they’re in range. I just pulled this one up manually, since obviously I already know where you are, but if this works the way it’s supposed to work, I should be able to search for any of the others and have it pop right over. Because I loaded everybody in here. Not just you! That would be weird.”

“That’s kinda what I figured,” he said. “Mind if I try it?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, sure!” A flick of her wrist, and a set of holokeys materialized under his outstretched hand.

He typed in, **$ > QUERY: ALLURA** , more so he’d have at least a little warning if she decided to return than because he cared about whatever she was up to, and the map re-centered on a cluster of dots in what appeared to be the mess. Purple and Yellow were still, but Blue was pacing the length of the room, with Orange making tentative motions after it, as if to try and follow, but losing its nerve.

“Shit,” he muttered. Lance had been the last thing on his mind.

Pidge made an inquisitive noise.

“I told Lance I’d find out how you were doing if he helped me get past the Princess. He probably thinks…” Keith had to consider that for a moment. What would Lance be thinking? “I don’t know. That I lied for no good reason, I guess. Or that it’s so bad I’m scared to tell him anything. He did try really hard to get in here and see you,” he added. Not that he was all that inclined to talk the guy up after the things he’d said earlier, but still, it seemed like something Pidge would have liked to know.

“I should be able to get a message to the terminal in his quarters, if he bothers to check,” she said. “I’d hate for you to have to owe him one. He’d be _insufferable_.”

He was tempted to point out that Lance was already insufferable most of the time, but instead he just nodded. He almost understood whatever it was the two of them got out of having someone to antagonize—it was the clear, mutual fondness underneath it that was beyond him. Probably best to leave it alone.

The steady, back-and-forth drift of Lance’s dot across the screen was kind of hypnotic, especially in combination with the soft background rhythm of Pidge’s typing, and he wasn’t entirely sure how long he’d been watching it before Yellow finally moved in to intercept and the two of them disappeared off the bottom edge together. Enough time for Pidge to assure him that his debts had been covered, at least, and now she was entering in something else he couldn’t quite read without having to move.

The terminal went blank, and stayed that way long enough for Keith to start wondering if it had frozen up on them before the image snapped into place. This time there was only a single dot, a black hole canceling out the terminal’s soft light, lurking somewhere deep in the ship’s lower decks that Keith didn’t think he’d ever ventured.

She pulled up the second window without a word, and Keith was really glad, all of the sudden, that it looked like she could only have one of these active at once. He _recognized_ that picture of Shiro, remembered the twist of agony in his gut when he’d caught him looking at Pidge that way after the botched supply run on Jol Tau. Apparently the open admiration in his eyes, the gentle, affectionate curve of his mouth had made quite an impression on her too, if she’d taken the time to dig through heaps of security footage just to preserve that moment in some interface nobody but her was ever meant to see.

Sorting through how he felt about _that_ was enough of a distraction that it took him a moment longer than it should have to notice Shiro’s heart rate, elevated far above where it ought to be.

“I checked earlier, after Allura left,” she said quietly. “I think it’s been like that the whole time I’ve been in here. That’s why I was hoping at least you’d been able to—” she couldn’t bring herself to finish, eyes welling over again, and _this_ , he understood, the helplessness and frustration, the unshakable feeling that you should have been able to do something _more_.

He looped his arms around her, tentative—not that he needed to be so careful if she was just gonna twist around on her busted ribs like an idiot and bury her face in his shirt.

“C’mon, you’ll make it worse,” he said. “Here.”

He nudged her with his leg, and she seemed to get the message, turning the rest of her body to lie on her good side. Her shoulders hitched, but she didn’t make a sound. Whether that was for his benefit or the sake of her own sense of pride, he didn’t know.

There was probably some kind of script you were supposed to follow when someone was crying on you: the right words and the right gestures in the right order to let them know you were sorry they were sad. That you would fix it if you thought you knew how. He must have been out the day they covered that one in school, so instead he leaned down into her, resting his cheek on the top of her head, and let her ride it out.

He sat up faster than he needed to when he felt her shift underneath him. His hand stayed where it was, however, curled protectively over the back of her neck.

She turned just enough to catch his eye, and for a moment he couldn’t even breathe. Yeah her face was kinda blotchy and her hazel eyes were red around the edges, but nobody—not even _Shiro_ —had ever looked at him the way she was looking at him now. It was forcing him to put quite a few things he hadn’t ever really bothered to think about into sharp new perspective, like the way her narrow frame seemed to fit against him with uncanny precision, or the thundering crash of his heartbeat behind his ribs, surging through every pulse point, or worst of all, how easy it would be to tip his head down and close that little distance left between them.

This had not been part of the plan.

Maybe she realized what she was doing, because she ducked her head, letting her hair fall into an unruly curtain around her face.

“Sorry about your shirt,” she mumbled.

“Huh?” He supposed it was a little damp—he’d been trying to do her the courtesy of pretending he didn’t notice. “It’s fine. You, uh, you okay?”

“I think so,” she said. “Just, I don’t know. I feel like maybe I should be more upset that Shiro hit me—like, he could have cut me in half! I’ve seen him do it to drones and they’ve got way more armor than we do—but, I’m not. I mean, I am, sorta, but he wouldn’t have—it’s like he was somewhere else. I don’t think he even knew it was me. Does that—does that make it better, or worse?” She sighed, rubbing at her eyes with a balled fist. “I’m worried about him. More than anything else. Is that bad?”

“No,” Keith said, before he really gave himself any time to think about it. 

Which—was that how he would feel, if their places had been reversed? If Pidge had been the one Shiro would cut him down to protect? He had to admit it would have made a lot more sense than the way things had played out instead, but that just led to more questions. If had been anyone _but_ Pidge at the end of that rope, for instance, would he have pulled the punch in time? 

…Best not to keep following that train of thought.

Anyway, Keith wasn’t sure he’d be handling any of it as well as she had been, under the circumstances. The only part he thought was crazy was that she didn’t seem inclined to put any of the blame on _him_. He felt a little sick when the realization sank in: if it had gone the other way, he wouldn’t have felt the same.

He supposed that being a jealous asshole would have been a much more straightforward way to ruin their friendship than whatever was going on in his head right now. Not that he wanted to mess up a good thing, but given his usual track record, it was bound to happen one way or another, so it might as well come from the comforting predictability of his own bad decisions.

Or—and this was his conscience; it had to be, because it sounded an awful lot like Shiro—he ought to stop worrying about what he might have done and focus on what he was doing. Which, believe it or not, was _helping_.

“Pidge?” he said, hoping it hadn’t been too obvious he was spacing out on her.

“Yeah?”

He wanted to ask her to get the door open, tell her that he’d carry her out of here on his back if he had to, and that they would hunt down Shiro and everything would be fine, but he couldn’t say the words. Not when he already knew what her answer would be. Not when keeping her from doing exactly that was the whole reason he was supposed to be here.

“So, um, how did you manage to get such detailed information out of those probes? They seemed pretty basic when we used them before.”

It was clumsy, and she didn’t bother to hide that she saw right through him, since she frowned a little and asked, “Do you actually want to know, or are you just trying to make me think about something else?”

“Yes?”

That actually got a laugh out of her, so there, mission accomplished. He reached down to brush her hair back, in the hopes that he could get a better read on how she was doing if he could see a little more of her face and, oh—oh no, bad idea. 

Her eyes widened, and she was biting her lip and she did that all the time so why was it so _noticeable_ all the sudden, and he tried to drop his hand to get it out of the danger zone, but it was already too late, and really any time she wanted to start talking shop instead of sitting there going vaguely pink at him would be _awesome_ , thanks.

She swallowed. “Um. Right,” she said. “Probes. You asked. Distraction. Yeah.” A deep breath, and then she seemed to find her way back on course. “Stop me if you get bored, I guess.”

Keith was able to follow along pretty well through the part where she’d liberated some spare diagnostic equipment from the infirmary to augment the standard detection functionality built into the probes as designed. Less so when she moved on to something about biotelemetry and data transmission, but that was okay too. Instead of worrying about the words she was using, he just focused on the tone and the rhythm of her voice as she spoke.

It was nice, even if he had lost track of who was supposed to be humoring who.

He closed his eyes and kept listening, even managed to hold a straight face when he slipped his arm around her waist halfway through a diatribe about hardware integration and completely derailed her train of thought. Not that he knew what he was going to do with that—he hadn’t really thought it through past wondering what would happen if he tried it. It was pretty cozy, though.

“You falling asleep on me already?”

He couldn’t quite bring himself to open his eyes. It had been a long day.

“I think I’m falling asleep under you,” he mumbled. 

She groaned into his shirt.

It was a terrible joke. Like, Lance-tier bad. Good thing nobody would believe her if she told them he’d said it.

“You want me to hang around?” he asked. “I don’t mind.”

“Yeah. That would be, uh, yeah,” she said, then after a moment’s thought, “Wait, do you snore? Because if you snore, I’m retroactively kicking you out an hour ago.”

He smiled. “Guess you’ll find out.”

For all of the grumbling that got out of her, she was still out before he was—that or really good at faking it. Either way, with the unfamiliar feeling of a warm body pressed up to his and the soft, steady sound of her breathing, the unease that had plagued him since this morning was fighting a losing battle against the pull of exhaustion, and it didn’t take him long at all to follow.

***

It was strange. Keith had always been a light sleeper both by nature and necessity, so it came as quite the surprise when he was roused not by the door sliding open or several sets of approaching footsteps, but by the sound of an irate alien princess shouting his name, about an octave higher than her usual register.

The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was Pidge, hair sticking out in every direction and eyes wide in alarm. Apparently she hadn’t been expecting visitors either, because yeah, not only was Allura pissed, she wasn’t alone. Behind her, Hunk was carrying a tray of fresh food goop, and oh, even better, Lance was here too, and he didn’t bother to hide the unbridled glee on his face at the sight of them.

Still no sign of Shiro. Under the circumstances, Keith wasn’t sure if he was disappointed or relieved.

“What—how did you get in here?”

He winced. Next to him, Pidge finally decided it might be a good time to sit up and deal with her welcoming committee. She grabbed her glasses and got them settled on her nose, then fixed Allura with her best chin-out glare.

“I opened the door,” she said. “Well, tried to, anyway—that was clever, cycling the passcodes every few tics so the override command would abort even if I cracked one. I mean, technically, Princess, you’re the one that locked him in.”

“Yes, er, that’s certainly one way of looking at it,” Allura said, “but you shouldn’t have been opening the door at all! You were supposed to be _resting_.”

“Well yeah, what did it look like we were doing? I swear to god, Lance, don’t answer that,” she added, as soon as he leaned around Allura to interject, one finger in the air. “Anyway, I was sound asleep until you guys showed up.”

“Me too,” Keith said. As if he would have let them catch him in such a compromising position if he hadn’t been.

Pidge and Allura ignored him, choosing instead to continue their little standoff in silence. For as upset as she’d seemed when she’d caught them, the princess was the first to back down, oddly enough. She dropped her hands from her hips and tilted her head, thinking.

“Perhaps I’ve misunderstood,” she said. “I didn’t think your species experienced symbiotic bonding on the cellular level. Is there another way it accelerates recovery, to have someone with you?”

“Oh yeah, totally,” Lance cut in, clearly unable to take it any longer. “There’s even a famous Earth ballad about this—” and he paused to waggle his eyebrows at them “— _sexual_ healing. Isn’t that right, Keith?”

“Lance!” Pidge had gone bright red, out of fury or humiliation or some combination of the two. “Ignore him, _please_. It’s not anything like that—I mean, it would be super cool if hanging around other people made our wounds close faster or something, but it’s more like, I don’t know, a stress relief kind of thing?” She shook her head. “It’s just nice to have some company, that’s all.”

Allura looked like she wanted to ask something else, but Pidge was spared the embarrassment of having to explain the nuances of human affection any further when Lance decided he wasn’t finished with his fun.

“Just look at her, Hunk. It’s too late! I—I don’t think we can save her!” And then, directed at Pidge, “And you! Sleeping with the enemy! Where did we go wrong? It’s Hunk’s fault, isn’t it? It’s okay, he’s right here, you can tell him.”

That got an indignant, “Hey!” out of Hunk, at the same time as Keith said, “We’re all on the same team, moron,” which just got Lance to turn on him instead, because of course it did.

“Yeah, all the more reason you should have consulted the rest of us before consummating your weird, arm-cestuous love affair,” he said. “No wonder you were in such a state when I caught you sneaking down here.”

“Wait. Wait, hold up,” said Hunk, after Keith had sprung to his feet but before he could come up with a better response to Lance’s bullshit than frustrated spluttering. “You knew Keith was here the whole time? Why didn’t you tell me, man? Now I feel like a jerk for not bringing enough food.”

“Hey, not cool. Turn off the puppy eyes,” Lance said. “If I’d _known_ I was helping the mullet get lucky—”

“Dude, I am right here,” Keith tried to point out, but Lance just kept talking over him.

“—wouldn’t have bent that nozzle on the food goo machine to give him a distraction. Wait, I mean, _shit_.”

It was too late. Allura’s eyes narrowed, and her hand shot out to dig into Lance’s shoulder, aborting his attempt at a hasty escape.

“Not just yet, Lance,” she said. “You know, honesty is one of the principles at the very foundation of the Paladin Code. I’m disappointed that you felt the need to deceive me. Both of you.” She glanced over at Keith, who had to fight the urge to take a step back. “Your actions were misguided, but I do believe your hearts were in the right place. Compassion is a principle too, perhaps the most important one of all.”

Her grip seemed to relax, as did her expression, but when she spoke again, it was with a well-honed edge of authority. 

“Do take care not to do it again,” she said. “Now, if all of you wouldn’t mind making yourselves useful somewhere else, I should see to Pidge. With any luck, she’ll be out of here in no time at all.”

It was clear there would be no taking no for an answer, and even if he thought he could get away with it, Keith was starting to feel like he’d overstayed his welcome. He followed the others out, glancing back once over his shoulder. Pidge had been looking too, and when she gave him a little smile, he felt a lurching stutter-thump in his chest and snapped his head back around, hoping beyond hope the other two hadn’t noticed.

The door had barely shut behind them when Lance sagged, rubbing his sore shoulder. “Anybody else feel like we just dodged a bullet in there?”

“You couldn’t have just kept your mouth shut for five more minutes,” Keith grumbled, because he sure as hell wasn’t going to admit he agreed. Pidge getting hurt the way she did had been difficult enough for everyone to deal with without invoking Allura’s wrath on top of it. Maybe that was why she had been so quick to forgive them, this time.

“Whatever,” he said, before Lance had a chance to get momentum again. “I’ll, uh, catch up with you guys.”

He’d already missed dinner. At this point, waiting another half an hour to get some food wasn’t going to kill him, whereas putting up with Lance snickering at him for much longer might drive him to homicide. Besides, a shower and a change of clothes sounded nice, and it would give him some much-needed time to think.

What the hell had gotten into Pidge last night, anyway? She’d never been much for the whole concept of personal space, but still. It had never seemed so _targeted_ before—well, not at anyone but Shiro—and that was the part he didn’t understand. Why him? And why now?

It wasn’t even that he minded her doing it. Kind of the opposite, actually, which was weird. Like, she’d more than earned his respect as a teammate, there was no question about that, and even before the rescue and the repairs and the rest of it had pushed them closer than they might have been otherwise, he wouldn’t have hesitated to call her a friend. Anything beyond that had never crossed his mind, at least, not that he could recall. 

Now though, it was like the door had been kicked open, and all kinds of things he hadn’t even noticed he’d noticed were taking on a whole new perspective. Was that really all it took to fill his head with fevered possibilities? For someone to show an interest? It only took two points to draw a line, and it was just his luck that even millions upon millions of light years from the rest of humanity, both of them were right here on this ship—god, he was pathetic.

Still, it begged the question: what did he want to do about it?

***

The mess wasn’t quite as empty as he’d hoped it would be when he returned. Apparently, Hunk’s repair schedule just so happened to have him working in an open panel next to the food goo dispensers this morning. Keith suspected it wasn’t a coincidence.

“Oh, hey,” he said as Keith approached, not looking up from the valve he was tightening. “You, uh, definitely wanna use the one on the right. Also, next time you need somebody to cover for you, please ask anybody else. Lance is kinda like a savant at breaking stuff.”

Technically, the whole thing had been Lance’s plan to begin with, but he had a feeling Hunk wouldn’t appreciate the distinction while he was still dealing with the aftermath. Also, it _had_ worked. That was worth something.

“Um, sorry,” he said. “I didn’t think he was actually gonna mess with it.” And then, because it seemed like the right thing to do, “You want a hand?”

“Nah, ‘m just about done. Thanks, though.”

True to his word, a little after Keith had found a seat at the long table, Hunk popped the panel cover into place, slipped his wrench back in his pocket, and came over to join him. They ate in silence for a few minutes—Keith’s hunger had overtaken his willingness to indulge small talk as soon as he’d taken the first bite—until Hunk paused, setting down his spoon and avoiding Keith’s eye.

“Can I ask you something?” he said.

Keith nodded. Whatever was bothering him had to be pretty significant—half his food was still on his plate.

“Not that this is any of my business—I mean, I guess it kinda is, if it affects the team, and it’s not like I have a problem with it or anything! I just, I think I might have missed something.”

Keith could relate. Where was he going with this, anyway? That hadn’t even been a question.

“Have a problem with _what_?” he tried.

“Oh! With you and Pidge, you know—” he made a hand gesture so vague it could have meant just about anything, but Keith was pretty sure he got the idea.

He could feel the creeping heat along the back of his neck as he scrambled for a response. “Wait, hold on. It’s not—everybody’s overreacting. She just wanted somebody to talk to, that’s all.”

It wasn’t all. Not by a long shot. Still, it wasn’t like he was going to tell Hunk that no, actually, she’d made it pretty clear who she wanted—even if he was still puzzling out the why of it—when he was still trying to figure out how _he_ felt about the whole thing.

“Really.” His voice was flat with disbelief.

“Really. Nothing’s going on.” That much was true, anyway. For now.

Hunk seemed to accept that, at least, though Keith couldn’t quite shake the feeling that he was somehow disappointed in him.

“Keith?” He hesitated, concern in his eyes. “Just, be careful, okay?”

Careful? With what? He hadn’t _done_ anything yet, seriously.

“Sure,” he said, because he wasn’t, about much of anything right now.

Before either of them could venture any further into this new and awkward conversational territory any further, heavy footsteps behind them sounded the arrival of someone new. Keith looked up, and just this once, he got the result he was hoping for.

It was Shiro.

He looked awful—pale and worn, with dark circles under his wide, restless eyes, but he was _here_ , and that had to count for something. Once he’d fetched his food, Hunk waved him over. Which was good. This would be a lot harder without any backup.

“Hey, man. You, uh, you doing okay?”

Shiro twitched a shoulder in what might have been a shrug and gave them a noncommittal grunt. 

Keith chose to interpret that as a ‘no.’

Then again, having Hunk here with them closed off certain avenues of approach Keith might otherwise try. He couldn’t deny that he wanted to grab Shiro by the jaw and force him to look him in the eye, though he wasn’t sure whether making any sudden moves right now would get him swatted halfway across the room. As much as he was willing to endure the consequences, however, he’d had enough of having an audience for one day already, so he kept his baser impulses to himself.

Instead, more cautious than he ever would have thought he’d need to be to be, he set his hand on Shiro’s arm—the flesh-and-blood one. It was closer. Don’t worry about anybody else, he tried to communicate without having to say it out loud. I’m here. Just please, let that be enough.

It wasn’t. 

Shiro flinched away from the touch, turned his body to angle himself away from both of them, and Keith let his hand drop with an awful sort of finality. His throat burned from the sting of rejection. It was hard to take, knowing that even if he’d managed to find Shiro yesterday, it wouldn’t have went any better than this.

Desperate for direction, he looked to Hunk, but was met with only upturned hands and a solemn expression—I’ve got nothing. Keith knew the feeling.

And then, as if things couldn’t get any worse, apparently now was the time Allura was going to choose to come sweeping into the room, all smiles and look-who’s-upright. Pidge was half-draped over her shoulders and looking less than thrilled about it, and while the difference in height between them would have made it an awkward pose at the best of times, the way her shirt was riding up because of it now was enough to reveal the bottom edge of the dark line of bruises marring the skin underneath.

It wasn’t like he didn’t know how she’d gotten them, or who had been the one to give them to her, or even how she felt about it, but Keith’s hand still tightened into a fist at the sight, nails biting into his palm. Even when he’d barely known her, she had a way of bringing out the protective anger lurking fierce and bright within him, and now he felt it surging. All he needed was to point it in the right direction.

But he couldn’t. At someone else, maybe, but not at Shiro—Shiro who had dropped his fork with a dull clatter and was gripping the table like it was the only thing keeping him in place and Keith couldn’t even begin to imagine the guilt and horror running through his head. The bottom dropped out of his fury at the very thought of it, and he was left with nothing but a dry mouth and a hollow sort of feeling in his chest.

He opened his mouth to say something, anything to break the icy tension that had settled over the room, but the sharp squeal of a chair scraping back against the metal floor cut him off before he could get the words out. In any other situation, he’d appreciate just how fast Shiro could move when he wanted to. In this one, he wasn’t sure which was worse: watching Shiro close himself off and disappear once again, or the careful, blank expression on Pidge’s face as she stared out after him.

She leaned up, murmuring something to Allura that Keith couldn’t catch. The princess nodded, and the pair of them left together, back out the way they came without another word.

He buried his face in his hands with a drawn-out groan. Shiro had been wrong about one thing after all—the only potential Keith had was the potential to take a bad situation and make it even worse. The most frustrating part of all of it was that he had already known exactly what he was good for, and exactly what he wasn’t. All this pointless exercise in leadership development had gotten him was two of his friends hurt and no one to blame but himself.

“You think we should go after them?” asked Hunk. Then quickly, “Or not! I mean, somebody probably should, but it doesn’t have to be you. Or me. Or now.”

Keith stood, too fast.

“I’ll go.” It was what he should have done the first time whether Shiro liked it or not. If he was still making a mistake, at least it wouldn’t be the same one twice.

About ten feet from Shiro’s door, however, he faltered. The others all seemed so confident that Shiro would listen to him, and instead he’d been brushed aside like he was no one at all. It had hurt, coming from the only person he’d thought he could trust to never make him feel that way. 

He probably looked ridiculous, standing frozen in the middle of the corridor, but nothing he could come up with was enough to convince him to move another step. For all he knew, Shiro might not even be in there. And if he was, what gave Keith any kind of reason to believe it would go better this time?

There was, of course, another path to take, if this one was as closed to him as it seemed. Someone else he cared about. Someone who’d _asked_ for his help, had even been grateful to take what little comfort he could offer.

It should have been unthinkable to turn his back on Shiro. Then again, it _should_ have been unthinkable that Shiro had done it first, and yet—

Maybe if he thought of it as a strategic retreat? A chance to gather reinforcements instead of facing the greater challenge at his weakest point? Putting it like that sounded a lot more worthy of a Paladin of Voltron than admitting he couldn’t bear the uncertainty, that just the chance Shiro might rebuff him again, or worse, was enough to crumble his resolve.

His skin felt hot and his stomach roiled, out of shame at his failure or disgust at his own cowardice or just the quiet, sinking feeling that he’d let everybody down. 

Either way, he’d made his choice. It wouldn’t be the same mistake, that much was certain. Whether he was making a bigger one remained to be seen.

***

The lights were out in the hangar when he entered, and he had to take care not to trip over any stray tools or loose cables as he made his way inside. He didn’t go out of his way to be sneaky—either she was hiding in here and the sound would give her the chance to decide how to respond, or she wasn’t and it didn’t matter.

“Who’s there?” a sharp voice called out from somewhere further in. It was definitely Pidge, but she sounded…off, somehow. A little louder than she should have.

Then again, it was a pretty big room. Maybe there was an echo.

“It’s me.”

At first there was no response. He was just starting to wonder if he should have been more specific when the lion he’d _thought_ was powered down lowered itself from its seated position with a languid, feline stretch. Its eyes felt like a spotlight, his skin taking on a sickly pallor under their eerie glow, and if he hadn’t overbalanced and nearly fallen on his ass in his scramble to get back before it squashed him, its paws would have been close enough to reach out and touch.

So that wasn’t ominous.

This really wasn’t a staring contest he was going to win, so he’d have to try a different angle. He took a cautious step forward, muttering, “Please don’t shoot me for this.” Then another, and another, until he was face to face with the enormous beast.

He reached up to lay a hand on its snout, felt the gentle thrum of the engines coursing through the metal skin.

“Hey, buddy, remember me?” he said, quiet enough that he hoped Pidge wouldn’t hear. “I just want to talk to her, okay? Will you let me in?”

For an instant, he thought he felt something flit through his head that didn’t quite belong there, but any concern it may have given him was quickly forgotten when Green’s eyes flashed and its muzzle split in a wide yawn. 

“No—wait, what are you doing? Don’t listen to him! _I’m_ your pilot! Hey!” From her exposed seat in the cockpit, Pidge glowered at him. “That was cheating.”

“Thanks,” he murmured, giving the lion a little pat as he climbed in, and then, to her, “It worked, didn’t it?”

“Only ‘cause _somebody’s_ a traitor,” she grumbled. “No, I don’t care if I was gonna let him in anyway. _You’re_ not supposed to let him sweet-talk you into it.”

He leaned up against the front console, careful not to nudge any of the controls—he didn’t want to push his luck any more than he had already. It was hard not to think about the last time he’d been in here, that last night before the castle had showed up to collect its wayward charges. They’d planned out a tricky maneuver to push Red back to safety even without her engines, but at the last minute, Pidge had stopped him. She’d grabbed his hands and told him he’d better be careful, and he’d just assumed she was nervous about pulling off such fancy flying. Now, he was almost sure there was more to it, even then.

“So what do you want?” she asked, snapping him out of it.

“What? Oh! I, um—I wanted to see how you were doing. That’s all.”

“I’m just great, thanks for asking.” Sarcasm. Definitely sarcasm. “It’s not like I’m three and a half million light years away from the nearest planet—well, three point seven, I checked—trapped on a ship that’s falling apart like it’s ten thousand years old. Only way I could be better was if I had a couple of broken ribs on top of it—oh, hey, wait a minute! _Awesome_.”

And for some reason he’d been foolish enough to think she’d be happier to see him.

“I just—I knew it might be bad, but—” she buried her face in her hands, took a deep, shuddering breath before she could keep going. “He won’t even _look_ at me. What am I supposed to do?” She sniffed. “You were there. You were with him. I thought—couldn’t you—”

Like he’d needed the reminder. Like that wasn’t all it took to turn up the heat on the guilt that had simmered low in his chest since the first time she’d looked to him for an answer he didn’t have and send it boiling over. Isn’t that why he’d come to see her in the first place? So he wouldn’t have to think about it?

“Since when does everybody think I’m some kind of—I don’t know, Shiro whisperer? He doesn’t—that’s not how it works!”

That got her to look up in stunned disbelief. “What are you talking about? It’s not like anybody else is gonna get through to him. He listens to you. He trusts you.”

Her words were like a knife slicing into him. He’d let down his guard, and it was as if she knew just where to strike so it would hurt the most, carving away at anything soft and vulnerable with no armor left to protect him. Not after earlier, after Shiro—

“Maybe that was true until _you_ showed up!” And he was shouting now, every moment she’d been favored, every time he’d felt _replaced_ condensing into a single, hot point of fury. “Don’t try to tell me you haven’t _seen_ the way he looks at you. If it had been anybody else—” his voice cracked. If it had been _him_ on the other end of it, he barely managed not to say. “—it all would have been fine by now! Don’t you get it?”

“Really? _That’s_ what you—what is that even supposed to mean?” 

He wasn’t sure when she’d gotten to her feet, or whether he’d been the one to box her in against the cockpit wall or the other way around. Either way, she was well into his personal space now, and looking like she couldn’t decide whether she was going to punch him in the face or burst into tears. If it was down to those options, he hoped she would go ahead and hit him. At least he knew what to do with that.

Instead, though, she just sort of drooped, as if all of her will to argue had been drained away.

“You _do_ think this is my fault,” she said, with a little hitch in her voice that left him wishing she would go back to yelling at him. “Is that what you’re trying to say?”

“I—it’s not—” he faltered. That wasn’t what he’d _meant_ , but it wasn’t hard to see how she’d come to that conclusion.

“You’re not wrong. Well, I mean, you are, about like half of what you just said, but the last part’s fair. It would have been fine if I hadn’t—” she shook her head. “I wish I could take it back. I didn’t—I should have known. Of course he’d protect you.”

Wait, what? Was that—he hadn’t even considered—it _couldn’t_ be the reason, could it? And it was almost funny, how just a few little words were enough to steal the breath from his fire and leave him dizzy.

“Pidge, _no_ ,” he said, “It wasn’t—I was the one that set up the whole stupid situation. I never stopped to think—”

“Nobody did.”

And there it was, the cold, sad truth. The stress and monotony of isolation had made all of them sloppy, and it would have only been a matter of time before someone paid the price in one way or another. Keith just wished it had been him instead of her.

When she spoke again, she was hesitant, unwilling to meet his eye. “You tried to stop him. I never did say thank you.”

“Well, don’t,” he said, too quick, too sharp. That was a sore spot too. “It’s not like it mattered. It didn’t work.”

“Shut up, Keith.” Her tone wasn’t angry—if he wasn’t pretty sure they were still supposed to be arguing, he might have called it fond. “You still did it, that’s why it matters.”

He wanted to keep pushing, to tell her that it was results, not intentions that made the difference, but something gave him pause.

Sensing weakness, she moved in for the kill. “You didn’t even have a weapon, you idiot. What were you going to do?” From anybody else it would have been have been a taunt. Even from her it should have put him on the defensive, so why did he feel so unsteady?

“You’re always doing stuff like that,” she continued, almost to herself, and either her flirting sounded a lot like fighting or her fighting sounded an awful lot like flirting, because he was getting one hell of a mixed message right up until, “Better be careful, or it might go to somebody’s head.”

“I, um—” Even if he was reading her right, which was no guarantee, what could he say to that? “That wasn’t, I mean—”

He could have embarrassed himself further, given the opportunity, but the floor went out from under them in an aggravated toss of Green’s massive head. The console behind him was the only reason Keith managed to stay on his feet, if only just. Pidge wasn’t so lucky. She stumbled forward, crashing into his chest with a wince, and he brought his arm up around her to hold her there. 

It was only to make sure she stayed upright, was all. She was already injured, he couldn’t just let her fall to prove a point, except—

Except this time he wasn’t going to talk himself out of it.

He hadn’t been sure until just this moment, which was funny, because it seemed so obvious in hindsight. How had he managed to fool himself so long? He should have known last night, when she’d fallen asleep to the sound of his heartbeat, or two weeks ago, both of them shoulder-deep in Red’s tangled wires, swearing and laughing and fixing what was left broken, one small piece at a time. Maybe even earlier than that, when she’d pulled him from the ice and let him eat himself sick on pilfered Galra rations, or any of the countless times he’d snuck down to her hangar for nothing more than the quiet contentment he found in her company.

All those chances to see what had been right in front of him, and still it took him right up to now to figure it out.

He wasn’t going to waste any more time.

The order of operations for what came next was still a little hazy, but if he stopped to overthink it now, he still might lose his nerve, so he got his free hand up to cradle her jaw and tried not to think of it as a warning. Caution: idiot about to kiss you has no idea what he’s doing.

She tipped her head up a bit at the contact, which was all the encouragement he needed to close his eyes, lean down and catch her mouth with his own. 

Not enough to stop the panic from setting in as soon as he’d done it, however. 

He felt her tense up, shift her weight to the other foot, and he took that as the signal to listen to the klaxons wailing ‘abort, abort’ in his head and let go of her before she had to do it for him.

“Sorry! I’m sorry,” he said. At least if he led with the most important words she might hear them before she decided to react. 

She was giving him the weirdest look right now, like she didn’t understand he was _trying_ to find whatever he needed to say to take the last thirty seconds back and replace them with another timeline where he was better at this. That was a thing you could do in space, right? Maybe if a very small wormhole decided to open up and swallow him? 

“I, um, it seemed like the right thing to do, I mean, it did. Until I started thinking about it, but—”

“Oh my god shut _up_ , Keith!”

Her hands were fisted in his jacket collar and pulling him down to her level before his brain had caught up enough to stop babbling, and then, okay, yep, they were definitely kissing again.

Apparently all it took to snap the wires of his tension was knowing she was just as on board with this development as he was. The indecision, the hesitance, the blind terror: all of it had vanished, replaced with a breathless urgency, a challenge that couldn’t be ignored.

She wound her arms around his neck, fingers tangling in his hair, and he pulled her in to lean up against him. Which just seemed to embolden her, not that he was going to complain. For one thing, complaining would require him to be able to string two thoughts together right now, and that level of effort was better expended on any of the far more interesting options that had opened up to him. Like ducking down to brush his lips against the sliver of warm skin where her throat met her collarbone, for example, or biting back a groan when he felt blunt nails curl against the back of his neck in response.

Even when she did pull away from the kiss, she seemed reluctant to give up the unbroken line of contact between them, instead choosing to nestle her head against his shoulder, her messy hair tickling his cheek. Her face was flushed, but there were hints of a self-satisfied smile playing at the corners of her mouth. 

Keith could relate, on all counts.

The silence was comfortable, almost the way he was used to. It seemed like more should be different, but there was no sharp, bright line dividing the before from the after, only a sense of resolution, like fitting the last piece into the puzzle—well, not _quite_ the last. That was the other thing that hadn’t changed: feeling small and adrift in the black, a lonely asteroid caught between two stars, forced to let one or the other catch him in their orbit or be torn apart by the intensity of the pull.

He ought to say something. 

He ought to say a lot of things, but, “I’m not sure why I thought that would make this less complicated,” was the best he could come up with.

Which, now she was laughing at him, and that was fair because it was kind of funny, this mess they’d put themselves in. But then she wasn’t, and she was looking at him the way she had last night and it was still more terrifying than it had any right to be.

“Complicated is okay,” she said, hesitant. “I mean, if you wanted to figure it out. That would be okay.”

He did. If this was what he’d been missing, he wanted to take all the time he had to explore this new frontier. Even the parts that prickled and stung. Even the parts that left him reeling. He wanted to. With her.

“Yeah, that would be…” he couldn’t find the right words for what it would be, had to settle for a quick kiss to the top of her head, “yeah,” again, this time mumbled into her hair, because at least that should be enough to let her know he was all in. 

And there was a moment, so quick he’d have missed it if he’d dared to blink, where profound, overwhelming _relief_ washed over her features before they settled back into a cast of familiar concern.

“Good,” she said, resolute. “But first, we fix everything else.”

He didn’t have to ask what she meant. Just one more thing they had in common, he supposed—a mutual priority, or maybe a shared delusion. It was sad to think it would take more conscious adjustment on his part to remove ‘competition’ from the list of roles he’d come to associate with her than it had to add whatever it was they seemed to be becoming. 

At least he probably wasn’t alone there, either. And if she was ready and willing to tackle the Shiro problem, with everything that implied along with it, then he could be too.

To say he was disinclined to let go of her would have been an understatement, but he needed some time to think, or even just to catch his breath, neither of which was likely to happen as long as he was being so easily distracted by the warm hand that had slid up under his shirt to rest on the small of his back like a dare. She was merciful enough not to protest when he moved, however, taking a step back to let him by without a word.

His focus was still shaky at best, and it didn’t help to feel her eyes on him as he went pacing across the cockpit. A plan was forming in the back of his mind, still in piece-parts, but if anybody on this ship could help him put them together, he’d be hard-pressed to find a better choice than Pidge.

She must have known what he was thinking, or else there must have been some change in his posture or the look on his face, because she was after him like a shot. Her hand was outstretched, and on reflex he opened his to take it, so it came as quite a surprise when instead, she clamped it around his wrist to bring a firm end to his restless patrol.

“You’ve got something,” she said. “Tell me.”

“I think I know what to do. You can track him down, right? Find where he’s hiding now with that thing you showed me?”

“Biolocator,” she corrected automatically, then shook her head, re-centering her attention. “Sorry. Not important. And yeah, that should be—here—” She pulled up the map again for him, but this time, there was no need to search. The black dot was already there in the middle of it, alone and unmoving.

“Still in his room. I, um, checked. Right after, just in case—” she didn’t finish that thought, or look him in the eye when she started it. “Anyway. Does that help?”

Keith nodded. “If he’d just tell me what the problem was, I’d fix it. Or try to,” he amended, because as it turned out, relying on the things that had worked _before_ never quite went as planned with somebody who didn’t remember much of the first time around. 

“He doesn’t like to show weakness in front of the team.” That much clearly hadn’t changed from their time together at the Garrison. “Not even me, but—”

“But you’re our best chance he’ll make an exception,” she cut in, then added, “What?” when he looked down at her sharply. “No pressure, but that was kind of what I’ve been counting on, so you might as well admit it’s true.”

It was the main thrust of his plan, more or less, but hearing somebody else put it the way she did almost made him _less_ likely to believe it would be enough. If he couldn’t get through to Shiro, just the two of them, with no bystanders to hold him back—well, he had to, didn’t he? So much for no pressure.

He sighed, dropping his shoulders. “Sure,” he said. “If I can get in there, I can probably make him talk to me. Which still assumes he’s going to open the door.”

“Hey.” She let go of his wrist—much to his relief; he’d never realized she had such an insistent grip—and instead reached up to brush back his hair where it had fallen into his face.

“Why do you look so worried? Getting through the door is the easy part. Not that I don’t think he’ll let you in, but even if he doesn’t—I mean, I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but I’m _awesome_ at doors. Worry about the next part.” She hesitated, rocking on the balls of her feet. “So, uh, what is the next part?”

He’d kind of figured he would just make the rest up as he went along once he finally had Shiro cornered, but somehow he suspected that wasn’t going to be the answer she wanted to hear.

“Recon, pretty much,” he said. “Sorry, I know that’s usually your job, but—” but even though he’d come down here to hide from the icy hand that rose up to clench around his heart at the thought of further rejection, everything that had happened since had only intensified his determination to see this through. 

“After that, I don’t know.”

She looked down at her hands, laser-focused on the nail she’d started picking at. “I know he probably won’t want to see me,” she said. “Don’t feel like you have to talk him into it or anything. Just—” and suddenly she stilled. “Let him know I’m worried about him, okay?”

“I will.” He’d do more than that, even if he wasn’t sure how. There were too many things she deserved the chance to tell Shiro herself, if he’d let her. 

He squeezed her shoulder, hoping it would help to return some of the lost confidence she’d been able to recover within him.

“Come on. Let’s fix this.”

There was no alternative.

***

One way or another, this door was going to open. He knew that. Which didn’t stop him half-jumping out of his skin when it happened, and he shook his head—since when was he so twitchy?

Shiro was inside, as promised, and he didn’t look surprised to see him. So he’d let Keith in himself. That was a good start, but Keith still made sure to get inside before Shiro had a chance to change his mind.

“I guess I can’t disappear forever, huh?”

His tone was flat, but the words he’d chosen were staggering in their cruelty. As if he hadn’t left a whole world behind to grieve him, believing he’d done exactly that. As if he had no idea that the only thing keeping Keith up at night, the only thing that left him with doubts about this mission they had been chosen for, was the chance it could happen again. The chance it could happen again and _Shiro wouldn’t come back_.

Keith had come in wanting to shout and bluster and make Shiro see what he was doing to the others by shutting them out. More importantly, what he was doing to Keith when they, out of everyone, were the ones who were supposed to have each other’s backs. Seeing him like this, though, so dejected, so _defeated_ , was enough to take the fight right out of him.

So, new tactic.

“Everybody’s really worried about you,” he said. It was close enough to what he was thinking instead: _I’m_ really worried about you. Do you remember when that used to matter?

There was no humor or warmth in the laugh he received in return. “They should be smarter than that.”

“What are you talking about?”

Shiro stared down at him, not seeming to comprehend what had been asked.

“I lost control,” he said. “I heard you in there and I thought—she wasn’t—I panicked—” Even getting the words out seemed to be a struggle, his thoughts choppy and broken, until finally, with his head buried in his hands, “I don’t even know what I am anymore.”

You’re _you_ , Keith thought. You’re my friend, even when no one else wanted to be. You’re our leader, and I would follow you to the end of the universe if that’s what you wanted. And whatever the Galra may have changed, it wasn’t any of that.

He took a step closer, reaching out for Shiro’s arm like he had earlier, in the mess, or like a hundred times before, back on Earth. He didn’t stop to think about which one it was until Shiro recoiled, looking pained.

“Please. Don’t do this.”

What the hell did he think was going to happen?

“Why not?”

He reached for it again, slower and more deliberate this time, letting his bare hand rest on the cool metal, just below where it was fused to Shiro’s skin. Shiro visibly tensed, as if he thought the arm would react on its own.

It didn’t.

There was a moment where neither of them dared to move, which, it was a start, but still, it felt unnatural. If all Shiro could see was Keith forcing himself to touch him, wouldn’t he mistake the nervous tension for a different sort of fear? Or worse, for disgust?

And that couldn’t be further from the truth. Keith wasn’t scared—at least, not that Shiro would cause any physical harm—and to even think he could find _any_ part of Shiro disgusting, well, it was laughable. How to prove it, though? He could only think of one way.

Please don’t freak out—he wasn’t sure if it was a thought or a prayer running through his head on repeat. Either way, he started to move his hand, tracing along the faint seams between the metal plates. He wasn’t sure what kind of alloy this was—Hunk could probably tell him all about it if he cared enough to ask—but the brushed surface had a dull sheen, and it felt almost like satin under his fingertips.

Keith had never been so bold before, never would have dreamed of it back on Earth, no matter how much he might have wanted to. He knew it made Shiro uncomfortable when the others stared, that he’d picked up the habit of favoring his left hand when he had to touch someone. For her part, Pidge had never bothered to hide her fascination with the arm. Now that he’d plunged himself headfirst into this cautious exploration, Keith was beginning to understand where she was coming from.

He slid his hand over to stroke the crook of Shiro’s elbow. The joints weren’t metal at all, but some kind of alien polymer with the texture of hard rubber. His curiosity got the better of him, and he squeezed down a little, just to see how far it would yield.

Down at the business end of things, the fingers jerked a little in response, but from the look on his face, that was all Shiro, so Keith didn’t stop.

“ _Keith_.” His voice was tight, almost strained, and if Keith’s heart wasn’t already in his throat that would have done it. “What the hell are you doing?”

Keith was still trying to figure that one out himself. Though whatever it was, a small, traitorous part of him wished he had thought to try it sooner.

“Proving a point,” was the answer he came up with, and then, “I’m not afraid.” He shouldn’t have needed to say it, not now and not ever, but he did anyway.

“ _I_ am.” Shiro hesitated, but didn’t move away. “I shouldn’t—it was a mistake to let me lead Voltron. How can I ask the rest of you to trust me when I can’t even trust myself? How can I ask Pidge—” his voice cracked on her name, and Keith’s resolve wavered.

The old jealousy still ran deep, though recent events had gone a long way to dull its bite. Underneath all of that, though, pulsed a a sharp current of unfamiliar indignation at the idea that Shiro should get to tell any of them how to feel. What gave him the right to refuse Pidge’s forgiveness outright, when she was willing to offer it so freely?

“She’s not afraid of you either,” he blurted out. It wasn’t what she’d asked him to say, but that didn’t make it any less true. “You’d know that if you’d just _listen_.” His hand tightened around the robotic arm, and he couldn’t quite ignore that Shiro’s other hand was trembling.

It was clear words alone were not going to get his point across. He could already see Shiro closing off, retreating back into himself. Apparently this was going to call for drastic measures. 

As it turned out, Keith was really good at drastic measures.

He took a deep breath, steeling his nerves, and then he yanked Shiro’s arm forward and pressed the hand to his own throat.

“I trust you,” he said, staring Shiro straight in the eye, and then again, for good measure, “I’m not afraid.”

He knew he couldn’t force Shiro to hold him there, that he was more than strong enough to end this now in one way or the other. Shiro’s eyes were wide, and his breathing was coming quick and shallow, but the fingers wrapped around Keith’s neck didn’t clamp down, and he didn’t jerk them out of Keith’s grip.

In the absence of action, he had too much space to process what he’d done, to let every detail of this moment burn its way into his consciousness. His mouth had gone dry, and he could feel the strange sensation of Shiro’s thumb digging into his pulse-point with neither sweat nor heat, and maybe the shock had sent his imagination into overdrive, but he could swear he heard the faint murmur of _something_ beneath the synthetic skin.

Unbidden, Pidge’s voice popped into his head, sharp with alarm, ‘He could have cut me in half!’ And it was true, just like he could crush Keith’s windpipe right now in a single motion. So why wasn’t it fear that had his palms sweating and his heart racing?

Before either of them could say anything more, the door crashed open on manual override and Pidge herself came charging through it, wild-eyed. She took in the scene in front of her, looking frantically back and forth between them, until Keith put his hands out in his best attempt at surrender, and Shiro snatched his arm back as if he’d been burned.

“Sorry! I really was gonna wait, but my readings just went nuts and I thought something happened and I panicked. I didn’t mean to interrupt, uh, whatever that was. What—what was that? Keith?”

“It’s fine,” Keith said, because what else could he possibly say? He couldn’t even begin to imagine what that must have looked like from the outside. Part of him still couldn’t believe he’d done it at all.

“No. It isn’t,” Shiro cut in before Keith had a chance to dig himself a nice deep hole. He had taken the first couple of steps over to her before he faltered, keeping himself just out of reach. “Pidge, I’m so sorry. I never meant—”

“I _know_ ,” she interrupted, and she didn’t wait a second longer to close the distance left between them. 

She threw her arms around his waist, injuries be damned, but he was the one to flinch, keeping both of his hands up well over her head.

“It was just an accident,” she said, a little muffled. “I’m okay. I promise.”

He seemed unconvinced, at least until she spoke again—only his name, but the question in her voice was unmistakable—and even then, his movements were cautious as he lowered his arms to embrace her. The left was first, familiar, tight across her back, and then the right, resting on her shoulder. 

It should have felt like more of a victory.

Instead, Keith found himself feeling extraneous. Like he was intruding just by being here, seeing them like this. Maybe it would be better if he slipped out now and gave himself the chance to straighten out his thoughts in the privacy of the training deck—there was something to be said for beating on drones until he felt better.

Shiro let go of her before he had the chance to decide, however, and a possibility he hadn’t allowed himself to consider left him rooted to the spot. Had he managed to outlast his usefulness? Pushing them to reconcile had been the right thing to do—for the sake of the mission at bare minimum, even before any personal feelings got involved—but in doing so, had he condemned himself to the sideline? 

After all, anyone with eyes could see the way she felt about Shiro. Which, nobody had to tell _him_ those weren’t the kind of feelings a person could turn off overnight, no matter what other complications life decided to throw in his face. But if she had a better option, would she take it? Could he really let both of them go without putting up a fight?

Did he have a choice?

“I’m not done—just—one second. Sorry!”

Keith didn’t get the chance to figure out what she meant by that before she’d turned and caught him by the hands to pull him back into the fold. She held on to him a second longer than she needed to, long enough to stand on tiptoe and murmur, “Whatever you’re thinking, you’re _wrong_ , got it?” into his ear.

His face went hot, and he floundered for some kind of response, but it was too late. She’d already let go and turned back as if none of it had just happened.

“Anyway, where was I? Right!” she said. “I don’t know what it’ll take to make you believe me, but if you figure it out, I’ll do it. Maybe I should have been scared, but I’m not, I—” she was talking faster and faster as she built up steam, and if she hadn’t been getting louder along with it, Keith might not have been able to follow. “—I’m just worried. Sometimes you act like you shouldn’t be here. You act like we can just keep going and do this without you, but we _can’t_.” 

With a hard breath, she came to a sudden halt, as if she was trying to pull herself back under control. It was like all the energy had been drained out of her, and her determination along with it, which—damn it, she was supposed to be taking it easy for a while, and here she was getting all worked up instead. To say nothing of earlier, on the subject of _worked up_. 

The Princess might actually kill him.

“That’s, um,” compared to a moment ago, it might as well have been a whisper. “It’s all I really had to say, I think. I’ll leave now, if that’s what you want.”

No. It wasn’t right, this wasn’t—he looked past her, at Shiro, who’d been stunned back into silence by her outburst. Don’t leave it here. He couldn’t find the voice to command it, but tried to will the thought into Shiro’s head nonetheless. Don’t leave her like this. You both deserve better than that.

And somehow, it _worked_.

“Pidge, wait.”

She froze.

Shiro’s expression had softened, though at the moment he seemed confused more than anything else. Still, the cornered-animal tension lingered in the hunch of his shoulders as he looked down at his arm, then back at her.

“It really doesn’t bother you?” he asked. “I’d understand, if it did.”

“What? No!” She reached for the hand, interlacing his fingers with her own—Keith was surprised he didn’t yank it away; maybe he was too afraid he might hurt her again—and held it up as if to give Shiro a better look.

“Are you kidding? This thing is amazing!” As soon as she said it, she winced and tried to backpedal. “I mean, not just in a hey, cool robot arm kind of way—not that it _isn’t_ , but that wasn’t what I meant! They gave it to you to kill people—sorry! I know we’re not supposed to go there, but I have a point, I swear. They wanted you to be a weapon, but you’re _not_ —” and her voice seemed to fray with the intensity of her feeling. “—You protect people. They couldn’t take that away. The arm just makes it easier.”

She looked over to Keith, apparently trying to communicate something at him with only her eyebrows, and he was pretty sure it was ‘help me out here, idiot.’

He took their joined hands in his own, pressed them tight. This was complicated. Complicated was okay.

“It’s _yours_ ,” he said. “That’s all that matters to me.”

“I…” Shiro hesitated. “If that’s how you feel, I’ll try to take your word for it.”

Okay, so maybe not quite the level of confidence Keith had been hoping for, but for as touch-and-go as things had been at the start, it could have gone so much worse. At least they’d managed to get him to listen. The rest could come later.

He was expecting Shiro to ask them for some space to himself when he gently reclaimed his hand from their custody, so it was no small shock to his system to be pulled into a fierce hug instead. Pidge had been jostled up against him, her elbow digging into his ribcage—not like he was in any kind of state to mind. Not with Shiro so close, solid and familiar and just, _here_. That alone was almost enough to overwhelm him.

“Thank you. Both of you.”

His voice was steady, even as the erratic pounding of his heart betrayed it—which, some of that was probably Keith losing track of the rhythm of his own racing pulse, but still. Even now, Shiro was trying to protect them, to reassure them he was in control, if only of himself. Keith wished he could tell him he didn’t have to, but he would be lying if he wasn’t grateful for it anyway.

He wasn’t sure how long they stayed that way, the three of them. Not long enough, by Keith’s estimation, when Shiro finally did loosen his grip. Then again, that was an upper limit he wasn’t sure he’d ever get in sight of, so he supposed he’d be happy to make do with what he got, instead.

“There’s just one thing,” Shiro said, brow furrowed, and Keith caught himself holding his breath, frozen by the possibilities of what could still go wrong. “You said something about ‘readings,’ earlier, when you came in. What did you mean by that?”

Okay, crisis averted—well, for Keith anyway.

“Oh!” Pidge squeaked, her face going an interesting shade of red. “I, uh, maybe modified a probe I found, a little, to track vital signs, um, forimportantpeople,” as if saying it quickly enough would spare her the embarrassment. “Here.” She pulled up the holoscreen and tapped the little red dot, not looking either of them in the eye. “See how Keith’s pretending he’s fine but he’s totally freaking out right now?”

“ _Hey_!” 

He reached over and killed the display before Shiro got the chance to take a better look. She hadn’t been _wrong_ , but that didn’t mean he had to sit back and let her prove it.

Thankfully, Shiro just ignored him. “Impressive work,” he said. “What’s the range on that look like?”

“Only a few hundred miles right now. Not enough to make a difference if something really bad happens, but—” she tensed. “Look, it’s not like I have it on all the time or anything! I just—sometimes I need to know I can find people. If I have to.”

The weight of her words was almost more than Keith could bear. He found her hand, curled into a trembling fist, and held on to it like a lifeline. As much as he wished he knew what to say, everything he could think of seemed insufficient, hollow. 

Luckily for both of them, they had Shiro—he always had been the one that was good at this stuff.

He ruffled her hair, with a tender kind of familiarity that made Keith’s heart ache, just a little. He’d used his right hand to do it, though, his other arm still heavy and warm across Keith’s shoulders, and Keith doubted that little detail had escaped Pidge’s notice. It had to be a good sign, right?

“We _will_ find them,” said Shiro, and it was the voice he used when he intended to leave no room for disagreement—not out of any expectation of deference, but on the strength of his conviction alone.

Keith knew it made him a hypocrite to worry as much as he did about what what would happen when Pidge was forced to face the inevitable. He knew how close he’d come to burning himself out chasing the very same ghosts, that he never would have stopped if if Shiro hadn’t crashed back into his life like a falling star. He knew that more than anyone here, _he_ should understand what she was going through, and instead, he only wished she’d take a long, hard look at the odds. He knew it was cold, but more than anything, he didn’t want to see her hurt.

And in spite of everything he knew, when Shiro spoke like that, Keith couldn’t quite help but believe him.

Pidge’s breath had caught in her throat. “That’s not—” she tried to say, but for once, Shiro didn’t give her the chance to finish.

“I know,” he said, “but we’re not going _anywhere_.”

Keith didn’t say anything, afraid that if he tried, he might take away, somehow, from the power of Shiro’s words. Instead, he squeezed her hand like he never wanted to let go, and the smile that lit up her face in return was proof enough she knew it was a promise he, too, intended to keep.

After all, they had all the time in the universe.


End file.
